


The Sword Asunder

by ViridianPanther



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: (if you read the Master Chief as canon asexual which I do), Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Canon Asexual Character, Depression, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Mystery, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, POV Alternating, Post-Game: Halo 5: Guardians, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, The Domain, The Master Chief Gets Drunk, The Master Chief Gets Therapy And Plays A Recorder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 55,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViridianPanther/pseuds/ViridianPanther
Summary: Post Halo 5 fix-it/continuation fic.On the AS-81 shipyard at Barnard's Star, a salvage mission goes awry on the discovery of a civilian husband and wife, in cryonic suspension, on a half-completed starship. A salvage becomes a rescue as the Guardians wreck the space station—but why has Cortana’s flotilla begun fighting itself?On the colony world Fordlandia, children hear urban legends about the giant, smooth rock outcropping on the coastline. They swim in its shadow, and return to their homes using its network of caves and tunnels. But who—or what—lies within the Old Wizard?On the ship known as UNSC Infinity, the Master Chief has lost his friend (twice) and lost his purpose in life. Relieved from duty as Infinity plays slipspace cat-and-mouse with his erstwhile friend, Professor Gudrun Hadid and Captain Tom Lasky order him to take a vacation. But, living with civilians and haunted by his own failures, can John ever truly switch off?
Relationships: Cortana & John-117 | Master Chief, John-117 | Master Chief & Original Character(s)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 17





	1. Give Me The Bones

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been on the go for a VERY long time, ever since I got angry at _Halo 5: Guardians_ in 2015 for ending the way it did. It's still not quite finished. After the first two, I intend to post one chapter a week (there will be seven chapters) leading up to Christmas and hopefully this will give me a kick up the arse to finish it.
> 
>  _Content warnings:_ **THE SWORD ASUNDER** features some characters who are not cisgender or heterosexual. You may read about some transgender or non-binary characters, or two people of the same gender consensually kissing. If this upsets you, then you need to grow up.
> 
> On a serious note, in this fic, the Master Chief is experiencing deep depression in the aftermath of the events of _Halo 5: Guardians_. Please exercise your own judgment. There's also some descriptions of pretty nasty injuries, (overhearing) people having sex, and references to child abuse (i.e. medical experimentation and forced labour/indoctrination of the young Spartans.)
> 
> With all that out of the way… **welcome to THE SWORD ASUNDER.**

_INFINITY TO S-117... COME IN, PLEASE._

John looked up from his sandcastle.

Another black spot on the horizon. A white point at its crest, growing and brightening by the second. A rising sound of approaching ramjet engines, air through a drainpipe, air through John's ears.

He looked behind him. His mother, in a simple floral dress, stood on a small dune. Peering through her binoculars at the black dot.

It grew. Approached. Resolved into a shape. A Pelican.

The air above them roared. The dropship sailed overhead, bound for the landing strip at the nearby base. John had learned by now to not fear them. He watched the drop ship, and watched his mom. The wind whipped up the sea, billowed at Mom's dress and coat and her colourful scarf, and she muttered something under her breath.

_INFINITY TO S-117... COME IN, PLEASE._

John shivered. The wind carried a biting chill. He reached into the paper bag, and placed a cube of lokum in his mouth. It went down quickly. Too easily.

_INFINITY TO S-117... RESPOND..._

He looked to the horizon again. The sun hung at a low angle, falling. The sea was rising—higher, higher—

"John!"

The waves rose, his mom waved to him—

_MASTER CHIEF—_

And behind the first wall of water—shards of _machine,_ moving of their own volition through the free air, combining, assembling into the face of Death.

The crashing of waves. The sandcastle disintegrated. The paper bag sodden, the lokum ruined.

And when Death spoke, she did so with the voice of an old friend.

` **THERE YOU ARE.** `

John's ears filled with the ocean. A concussive **BOOM** —

  
  


* * *

  
  


The Master Chief jolted awake.

The Far-Sun glimmered amber through the skylight, while the Near-Sun, filtered mauve through the rings, cast dim beams across the attic.

Mounted on the wall's yellow plaster, the hands of the clock marched in one-second tick-steps. 05:49. The hour hand only around a tenth of the way around the dial, between hour markings five and six (of forty-nine hours, the length of a solar day on this world.) Most Fordlandians would not wake for another four hours; they'd stay awake for about sixteen, nap, wake again, and that would take them up to midnight.

The Master Chief's circadian rhythm had been upset. He was no longer on a starship, which was good: the floor beneath his feet no longer shuddered every few hours as they did a magic sequence of slipspace jumps. And he could leave without needing a rebreather.

But it was also not good. John was the only person for some kilometres in either direction with a military rank. Professor Hadid, probably sleeping in the other guest room downstairs, didn't count. Nor did Dr. Halsey, probably sleeping in the town's police station.

And nor did his two hosts. A rhythmic thumping was coming from their room. The creaking of a mattress and a bed frame. And heavy breathing, both of them. Grunting. More than that: moaning.

_"Oh God, yes. Yes. Just like that. Oh. Oh wow."_

It took John a second to work out what was happening.

_"Oh, Anne, you're incredible—fuck, oh my God, you're going to make me come!"_

Another fifteen seconds for John to scurry back into the attic and shut the door behind him.

He re-laid the blanket and quilting over the bed in an immaculate rectangle. He in the shower room for two minutes, counting off each second with a snap of his fingers. He reached to turn the control off after a hundred and eighteen; then he remembered the water mill adjacent to the house. No enforced two-minute showers of recycled water here. In the end, he stayed put until his fingertips turned crinkly.

After he had set the cubicle to blow dry, wrapped himself in towels, and run the shaver-glove over his chin, John took a look at his reflection for the first time in a long while.

The Master Chief did not recognise the man in the mirror. Hair that was much longer than it had been for decades, a dusty, dark brown, swept to the right by the dryer. A complexion that looked as if someone had discovered how to exploit melanin to depletion. Eyes that looked straight through himself and thousands of metres beyond.

The figure that looked back seemed afraid, and in the back of John's mind, he felt afraid of him too.

He laid on his back on the bed, naked, hands locked behind his head, eyes closed.

Tried to sleep.

No. Not tired. He _couldn't_ sleep. He'd slept for the last twelve hours, plus eight of the last night on _UNSC Infinity._

This was something the Master Chief had not experienced for a while. No standing orders, no mission. No de-briefs to read. No Spartans to drill or War Games simulations to marshal. No weapons to polish. No nothing, as Lasky had insisted.

John sat upright on the bed, and scanned the room. No bookshelves that he could see (which would've at least given him something to read.) No other doors except the one to the bathroom and the one out onto the staircase.

On the bedside table, a small canvas bag, with the number 117 on it. John's. Forest green, the same colour as his armour. Inside... not much. His Fordlandia entry visa, in a small plastic wallet. The recorder he had been learning to play. And the button.

He weighed the button in his left hand for a moment. Toyed with the idea of pressing it. He had no way of telling how long it would take _Infinity_ to pop out of the sky if he did; nor did he have any way of telling how livid Lasky would be. For now, he put it back. The panic could wait for another day.

He picked up the recorder. Counted the holes with his fingers. Thought about what he could play as he raised the mouthpiece to his lips. _Frère Jacques_ seemed appropriate...

Or not. The room was silent, but if John strained his ears, he could just about hear the rhythmic thumping from downstairs. It was still going on. _Still._

John thought about the fact he was sitting in bed, naked, handling a long, stiff object.

Very quickly, he put the recorder back in his bag, zipped it up, laid back, and tried to clear it from his head.

For a long while, Master Chief Petty Officer John, Spartan-117, didn't remember the last time he had felt bored. And then, all of a sudden, it had been his reality for months. And he wasn't about to spend his day doing nothing at all. He'd had too much of that on _Infinity_.

He dressed in grey pants and a green sweater from the closet, pulled on his issue boots, and strode downstairs. Past the thumping from Anne Møller and Kurt Stjernberg's room. Downstairs again, into the living room. Past the sideboard, the shelves housing various models of still and video camera. Associated with his hosts' profession, John assumed: Anne was a film-maker who specialised in documentaries, while Kurt was a sculptor whose studio was apparently downstairs.

The house was yellow-bricked like the attic guest room, three detached storeys on a street of twelve houses that were identical, save for the colour. The front yard was immaculate: neatly trimmed catkins, a lawn made of golden moss, hexagonal tiling forming a patio leading from the porch to the green asphalt of the street itself. Four bicycles stood on their kickstands at the fence. One, with its saddle set much higher than the others, and a frame sprayed forest green, was John's.

The wheels unlocked themselves, and the handlebars lit up white as John approached. It wasn't necessary. John had never learned to ride a bike. He'd tried to mount it yesterday, failed, fallen, and torn a hole in his pants. The bike's luggage rack bore a large ding in the green paint.

So he did what he'd always done, for as long as he could remember. One foot, in front of the other, in front of the other. One, two, double-time. And he ran.

The houses made a multicoloured frieze on either side of him, the hue changing with the cadence of his footsteps. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. Red. Orange. White. Grey. Gold. _Regnebuegåde_.

John turned right onto the main road. _Tintageltorget_. This was the town square. A fountain. A plaque commemorating its founding, just over seventy-nine years ago. A signpost, different destinations, different directions. **LIBRARY. POLICE STATION. STRAND. TRAINS. STORES. CARS. AIRPORT. AALBORG. CLIFF TOP TRACK/ÆLDRE TROLDMANDEN** ⌘.

John knew that most of Fordlandia's population came from the Scandinavian and Germanic countries. He didn't speak any of the classic Scandinavian languages, but he knew enough English, German, and Dutch to guess what it meant. _Ældre_ sounded like _elder_ , _mand_ like _man_ , and _trold_ like _troll._

Curious as to what the Old Troll-Man was, John followed the sign and turned left. _Skolegade_. Towards the clifftop path.

Three metres per second, one point five with every footstep, two footsteps per second. The wind felt strange in his hair. Wind itself was something he hadn't experienced outside his suit for years.

A train passed him, and stopped at the station platform on his left. The doors opened. _"Tintagel,"_ said a synthetic voice from inside, _"this is the train to Aalborg."_ The hissing of doors, an electrical hum, and the train overtook him again, tail light glimmering red.

The only vehicle John had seen today. Tintagel was still fast asleep.

The library was a large, angular building overlooking a small pond. It was also the school: beyond the pond was a large playing field, a grifball court, a hill, encased in the dull blue glow of a forcefield fence.

John's school, as he remembered, had a fence made of wire. (At least, he thought. It was a _long_ time ago. Lessons, detentions, King of the Hill—and that one day when a woman in a flowery dress had made him catch a coin. John ran faster. Leaving the playground and the forcefield out of sight, out of mind.)

A light in the distance. A woman, in utilitarian-looking clothing, cycling the other way towards Tintagel. A toolkit hung from the back of her bike, and her hands were covered in grease. A mechanic, John assumed.

"Good morning!" she said, cracking a weak smile and moving her hand off the handlebars to wave.

John said nothing.

The woman passed him. She broke eye contact, and he heard her muttering to herself. _"Suit yourself, sunshine. If that's what you want."_

Under normal circumstances for John, a crisp salute would've done. But this—here—was not 'normal circumstances.'

Everyone here did what they wanted. Picked where they _wanted_ to live. How they _wanted_ to get around. What they wanted to wear. Nothing decided for them. Nothing instructed. They smiled and said good morning to John, without saluting. Without a shock of star-struck inferiority.

Without knowing who he was.

The road banked to the left, and then made a sharp curve to the right to climb a large hill. The Near-Sun climbed, shone golden highlights onto the chalky white of the cliff edge.

Another bright light in the distance. Another cyclist approaching. A person with thick spectacles and jet-black hair, in a long, billowing coat. They rode a large flat-bed bicycle, the front box laden with books and document files.

"Good morning!" John said, waving vigorously. Smiling. He hoped.

The person glanced at him. Nodded silently, expressionlessly. Eyebrows betraying a scowl. And then they were gone.

Not for the first time since arriving on Fordlandia, John was glad there was no-one else to see that.

The sunrise caught in the reflective border of a sign ahead. Another looping cross symbol ⌘, white on dark green. **ÆLDRE TROLDMANDEN, 1300m.** And another below it. **UNSC BASE (Aalborg Haven) 5700m.** And another, beneath a red triangle containing a pictogram of a person driving a car. **DANGER! MANUAL VEHICLES.**

And on the horizon, as the track rose to its peak, the Old Troll-Man. As it turned out, a monolith, a large butte of igneous rock rising two hundred metres above the cliff-edge, and descending further beyond the sea bed.

Something about the Old Troll-Man looked wrong. John was no geologist, but he could tell this was an anomaly, something out-of-place. A giant hunk of rock embedded into the cliff-edge, like a tool left in a set concrete wall.

The footpath and the cycleway terminated in a small paved area, with a tree, a telescope which cost 5 credits to activate, and an information placard. A round building made of glass stood around twenty metres away from the Old Troll-Man; John peered through the windows, and saw large rectangular fittings on the wall, with odd coloured splotches on them. Artwork, he guessed, which would make this an art gallery.

To the north, the land; to the east, the Old Troll-Man; to the south and the west, the sea, churning itself and the air above it.

John sat on a bench near the art gallery and looked to the horizon.

He wasn't sure why he had come here. He could've stayed in his bed. But exploring, and discovering something new, made a change. It beat running laps around the corridors of _Infinity_ , drilling the Spartans, cleaning equipment _._ And that was all he'd been able to do, since the Cryptum.

Since Her.

Cortana's Guardians were now following them—following _him_ —and leading an armada of allied ships. Military, transport, medical, some leisure cutters... if it could make a hole in slipspace, it got assimilated into the fleet. If it could make a hole in a ship's hull, it got promoted to the front of the fleet. If it could do neither, it was quickly wrecked.

 _Infinity_ had been playing cat-and-mouse for nine months. The Cole Protocol was no longer sufficient. It took a minimum of three random jumps before you could emerge without a segment of Cortana's flotilla waiting for you. But even that was only temporary.

Roland, with nothing else to do having been physically detached from control of _Infinity's_ systems (he wasn't even allowed to control the doors any more), had calculated the optimal configuration. Seven slipspace jumps would earn them a maximum of forty-nine minutes before Cortana deduced their location and came for them. Any fewer, and she could compute all the potential destination solutions in minutes; any more, and you'd be wasting valuable energy for minimal gains.

Given the circumstances, Lasky, Palmer, and the navigators were careful. They had checked, double-checked, and triple-checked Roland's math, then run it past Halsey, past the remaining bridge crew, past the science team, and past anyone they could find who could remember how basic calculus worked. It checked out. And now this was how it was: hours, days at a time, tunnelling through the Slipstream. Sometimes random, sometimes programmed to bring the seventh jump—and the precious forty-nine minutes—into refuelling range of a hydrogen-rich gas giant, or an ordnance cache.

Day after day, week after week, month after month in the black void of the Slipstream, with nowhere to go but elsewhere on the same starship. And no respite in the cryonics centre: the whole reason for keeping enormous banks of freezers on starships was to save resources during long, slow slipspace jumps. _Infinity's_ translight engine (of a Forerunner design) worked _so_ well that the cryo bay was surplus to requirements. It had been removed during the ship's refit last year, replaced with crew accommodation.

So, Fordlandia was a respite. R&R, said Captain Lasky. They were provisionally due to stay for three Fordlandian days; John still had nothing to do, but he now had _space_ in which to do—

_"Morning!"_

John snapped onto his two feet. His figure sprung into a stance for hand-to-hand combat.

The woman, in her sixties or seventies, plump, pale skinned, with curly grey hair, seemed unfazed as she popped her bike onto its kickstand, and then removed her blouse.

John wasn't sure where to look. Nudity didn't raise an eyebrow in the ablutions on military installations, or starships. But local customs differed. John remembered at least one operation where the UNSC's guidebook had told him, 'locals will imprison anyone with exposed skin in the towers of their churches."

"You must be new here!" the woman said, as her remaining clothing came off and went in the pannier on the back of her bike.

"Yes, ma'am," John said, sheepish. "I'm passing through."

"Welcome. Martta," said the woman.

"Master—" and John immediately stopped and reversed. "John."

"Pleasure to meet you," said Martta, and positioned herself at the end of a worn track in the (fungal, bright purple) grass. On a ledge. She then made the sign of the cross with her right hand, and jumped.

For a split second, John began leaping towards her to stop—to catch her, mid-jump—and then, out of the corner of his eye, saw the other cyclists arriving. A couple. An old man. A young man. Further down the hill, an entire family, three women, two men, four children, and a dog. A squad of five people in gear he recognised as UNSC Army, presumably from the base at Aalborg Haven.

All of them did the same thing. Took off their clothes, and plunged from the cliff edge. One by one.

John peered over the cliff-edge again. Small, flesh-coloured blotches swimming around, in rough circles, some going left-to-right, children just splashing about. And some climbing onto the rocks, and then scrambling onto a wooden jetty.

The waves looked blue. Inviting, in the heat of two suns.

Not one to be the odd one out this time, John removed his boots, and folded his sweater, slacks, and underwear. The pile went under the bench. In clear sight and stealing range—but he remembered yesterday evening.

 _"Nothing gets stolen on Fordlandia,"_ the woman at the town hall's information office had said, as Professor Hadid had organised papers, bikes, and maps for them.

John stood on the cliff edge for a moment, looking out to sea—and then beneath him. Around forty metres to the waves. He closed his eyes, and leapt forwards.

The speed of his trajectory took him by surprise. No MJOLNIR boosters to give him a floaty, safe descent—

This was acceleration under gravity, freer, faster, into the wall of water, as John's ears filled with the ocean—

A concussive **BOOM—**

  


  
  


* * *

  
  


_INFINITY TO S-117, RESPOND, PLEASE..._

A **BUZZ** of static. John squeezed his eyes tight shut. Opened them again.

Black space. An unfamiliar starfield.

_"Master Chief, respond, please."_

The Master Chief chinned the COM control. "This is One One Seven, go ahead."

 _"What the hell are you doing—oh, we don't have time for this,"_ came Jespersen's voice in his ear. _"You need to get back, you've got eight minutes, maximum."_

The Chief registered that he was weightless. Checked his suit's fuel and air levels. Plenty to get back to _Infinity_.

He spun around, manoeuvring rockets hissing, centering the grey monolith in the distance. The Master Chief activated the booster. A gentle _whine_ , and a quiet rush of acceleration.

 _Infinity_ grew. Distant monolith, to ship, to sky.

 _"Airlock Three door set to manual, Master Chief. Welcome home,"_ came Roland's voice.

A navigation point sprouted into existence on his visor. The number three EVA airlock, around a third of the way along _Infinity's_ underbelly. Two kilometres, and falling rapidly—he would easily make it. A timer, too. Two minutes and nineteen seconds.

The Master Chief decelerated, and grasped onto the airlock handle. He hung on for a little while as the door opened, and regarded the void below him.

It was peaceful out here. Silent. Free. Enough that John had managed to fall asleep. And this had been his first time outside a pressurised spaceship atmosphere in about five weeks.

The airlock repressurised, and his boots _clunked_ as the gravity plating kicked in and 1 _g_ of acceleration returned.

 _"STAND BY FOR SLIPSTREAM JUMP IN THIRTY SECONDS,"_ came Roland's voice over the intercom, _"Master Chief, please set the door to automatic behind you."_

The Master Chief turned about, and threw the switch into the 'automatic' position. He grasped the handle on the inner door gently. Watching the timer on his visor.

**5\. 4. 3. 2. 1. 0.**

_Infinity's_ superstructure shook slightly. A momentary electrical growl. Then silence.

 _"SLIPSTREAM JUMP COMPLETE,"_ Roland's voice came again, _"CARRY ON."_

The airlock door opened. Commander Palmer stood before him, framed on either side by two terrified-looking Marines, hands uncomfortably close to the triggers of their rifles.

John couldn't process the expression on her face. Anger, or confusion, or outright exasperation, or all three, or none.

"The Captain wants to see you," she said. "Now."

He followed her in silence into the elevator and onto the bridge. Lasky was leaning on the doorframe of the conference room, regarding John with another expression he couldn't process.

"Thank you, Commander," he said, and Palmer nodded and departed without a word. "Thank you," he said to the two Marines, "return to your posts." They snapped to attention with a 'yessir,' and scurried off, their hands and foreheads glistening with sweat.

The Master Chief tried to divine something in Lasky's facial expression. Failed. Again. But he wasn't happy. The Captain's hair was voluminous with water from a hurried shower, and as he said "come in, please," turned to his side, and mock-bowed, John could see the sweat beaded on _his_ forehead as well. And he was sure it wasn't the climate control. Maybe he was ill.

Or maybe John wasn't the only one finding this uncomfortable.

The Master Chief entered. Dr Halsey was sat behind the desk. Eyes laser-blue, hair thinning but neatly combed, a paper journal and pen at the ready in her hand. Next to her, Professor Gudrun Hadid, _Infinity's_ chief medical officer. Her tunic and trousers were a minimalist brown, but her collection of headscarves, capes, and turbans that she wore as hijab must've been enormous. John hadn't seen this one (pink tulips) before.

Lasky closed the door behind him, and took his own seat. Between Halsey and Hadid.

"Helmet off, please," he told the Master Chief.

He'd been hoping he could stay behind the faceplate. He reached to the back of his neck—quickly, to avoid betraying his reluctance—and pushed the release, only to find it wasn't there, leaving his fingers in a clumsy scrabble around the base of the helmet.

(This wasn't his MJOLNIR suit. He'd picked up a standard, dark grey EVA bodysuit from the armoury on the S-deck, something he could put on quickly and without needing a machine to strap him in.)

Lasky let this go on for twenty seconds before showing pity and standing. "It's on the neckline, there's two buttons. You have to press them both and manually disengage at the same time—" he said, standing on his tip-toes, grasping the Chief's helmet and giving it a wiggle in its socket— " _there_ you go."

The helmet came free. John did not blink, and kept his jaw so tightly clenched it hurt. He saw Lasky looking up at him, felt his breath on his eyes, nose, and cheeks, and inhaled his discomfort. John remembered that he knew how to disengage the helmet—he'd just forgotten.

Lasky placed the helmet on the desk and returned to his seat. "Please," he said, gesturing the Master Chief to sit in the chair on the other side.

This felt like an interrogation. John remained standing. It hadn't been a direct order.

Lasky leaned back in his chair. Looked to Halsey, to Hadid.

"What were you thinking, John?" Halsey demanded, eventually. "You could've been _killed_. What in the name of—"

Professor Hadid raised a finger to her right, but kept looking at the Chief. Halsey took the hint and stopped.

"Is there anything you want to talk to me about?" the Captain asked. "Privately, if you want." (Halsey shot him a dirty look at this.)

"No, sir," the Master Chief replied.

"Are you sure?"

The Master Chief kept his mouth shut.

"John," Hadid said, suddenly, perhaps to break the silence, "please sit down. I'm getting a sore neck looking up at you like this."

Her voice was soft, throaty, which told you that she cared even when her German-accented English was choking on consonants. She knew when to be direct, though. It worked.

John sat, and tried his best to sit up straight. The seat was small, and his rump extended over the edges. The frame creaked, but less than he was expecting.

"Thank you. Now," said Hadid, "did you use the airlock to get off _Infinity_ for a while?"

The Master Chief nodded. Small, but committal. Conscious.

"And why did you do that?"

That was harder. He couldn't nod, or shake his head. He had to reach for the words, and use them.

"I can't explain that, ma'am."

"Were you meaning to come back?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"OK." Professor Hadid nodded. Halsey whispered something across to her.

_"He's never liked starships—"_

"Catherine," said Hadid, eyes kindling with exasperation and fixing Halsey with a death-glare, "John is right in front of us and he can hear you. And while he is here, we do _not_ talk about him in the third person. Understand?"

Halsey retreated into her seat. Put down the pen. Hadid seemed to be the only person who could make her do that.

"John," Lasky said, standing, but still a good quarter of a metre below his eyeline, "I need you to tell me if things are getting too much. Or if you don't feel safe. Or if you don't feel happy."

"Yes, sir," the Chief replied.

"Yes, you don't feel happy, or yes, you do feel happy?"

John didn't answer that. Lasky was clearly hoping he'd say something, and took a long time formulating his next sentence.

"I know it's been tough, these last seven weeks. You may not be on duty, but I retain a duty of care." He paused. Took a deep breath when he realised John didn't understand. "Towards you."

"We care about you, John," said Professor Hadid. At that, Lasky sat down, looking relieved.

The Master Chief nodded. "Thank you."

"Now," said Lasky, "I just _can't_ have you wandering off the ship. If something's wrong, I need to know. OK?"

"Yes, sir," the Master Chief replied, slowly, with conviction.

"So, I'm going to ask you now. Why did you steal an EVA suit and leave the ship?" Lasky asked.

John opened his mouth to speak, but had no words to say. He wetted his lips with his tongue. Formulated some words.

"I don't like starships, sir," John confessed.

"And that's OK," said Lasky. "God knows _I_ hate starships. But we're stuck on one right now." And he was right.

"I hate this," the Master Chief said, unprompted.

Halsey's mouth dropped open. But it was Hadid who spoke.

"Hate being idle?"

He nodded. After a pause:

"I've become a liability, ma'am."

"No you haven't," said the Captain, as Hadid shook her head.

"I can't complete my duties—"

"John, would some R&R help?" Hadid, again, cutting off a strand of conversation she didn't like the idea of. Nipping it in the bud.

The Master Chief did not reply to that. He didn't know how to process the conversation. Where it was headed.

"I was checking your file earlier. Technically, John," said Lasky, "you've been on duty, non stop, since 2552. Over seven years."

"A lot of that time was in cryonic—" began Halsey—

" _Not_ helpful," interrupted Hadid. Nipping that in the bud too. Once she had her silence, she turned to Lasky. "Tom, we're dropping off our guests on Fordlandia tomorrow, am I right?"

Lasky nodded. Halsey looked on like they were discussing which children's home her son would end up in.

"We need to go back to Tau Ceti anyway to collect Blue Team," said the Captain. "We could be back in around a week."

"So that's three Fordlandian days," said Hadid. "How does that sound? About a week of R&R."

John thought about this for a long moment, in silence.

"Fordlandia is beautiful," said Lasky, probably to break the silence. "It's one of my favourite worlds. The beaches are stunning, it's a great place to relax. I promised my partner I'd take him there, before all this happened."

John wondered if Lasky was trying to get rid of him.

"Are you sure?" Hadid asked. "You don't have to if you don't want to. That's OK too."

This was the way everything from Hadid came. Clear, precise, wrapped in a promise that it was OK if he didn't want to talk, or didn't want to do what she suggested. Counselling tactics, to make sure John knew he was in control, that he wasn't being ordered to do anything.

But even with control over his own life and destiny, John did not know what to do with it.

"It's fine," John said. "I'll go."

"A rest will be good for you, John," Halsey piped up for the first time in a while. "You were never meant to be cleaning ablutions and—"

" _Thank you,_ Doctor." Hadid cut her off again, and Lasky shot daggers at her. She got the message. Retreated into her seat.

Lasky broke his intense look of disgust towards Halsey, turned to John, and smiled. "Happy?"

John's lips didn't move, but he nodded.

"Good," Lasky nodded. "Thank you."

  
  


* * *

  
  


John took a seat towards the back of the conference room, watching others file in. Kelly. Frederic. Linda. Captain Lasky. Professor Hadid. Spartan Locke. Three of the four navigators on staff: Lieutenants James and Jet, and Ensign Do. Spartan Tanaka. XPO Armstrong. Commander Palmer. Spartan Dalton.

Doctor Halsey had called the meeting without indicating what it was about. But the mystery was dispelled the second the first slide came up. **NEAR MISS: GUARDIAN-CORTANA VS. INFINITY.**

"I'm sure it didn't escape your attention," Halsey said, "that we ran into _two_ Guardians yesterday during John's rescue attempt for our two guests stranded at the shipyard." Here Halsey eyed him uneasily, and John knew full well that Hadid was glaring daggers at her. "I'll show you the video again."

The slide changed. A view from _Infinity_ 's underbelly. Moving.

"You can see here," said Halsey, drawing lines on the video from her datapad, "this is _I'm Sure It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time_ —" and here John thought he could detect a smirk as she rattled off the name in a single breath— "and here's the airlock... and _here_ is the rescue party." She drew a line, clear of the stream of shuttles and dropships heading from the station hub—arcing to the left, then down. Three dots appeared—that must've been John, Palmer and Stacker.

She wound the footage forward to the point when the Slipspace portal began to form off to the left. Seven points of light merging into one hole in everything, from which the Guardian emerged.

"And then, thirty-three seconds later," Halsey said, winding the footage forward _again_ to the seven _other_ stars forming an entry portal for the _other_ Guardian.

"Two Guardians," Palmer said. "And this is news... how? I'm not sure if you remember, Doctor, but I was there—"

"What's interesting is _not_ that she has two Guardians," said Halsey, not raising her voice, but controlling Palmer by talking over her. "She controls _all_ the Guardians that we know of. Or, at least, a sizeable number, from what Mister Locke reported from Genesis."

John looked behind him. In the corner, Spartan Jameson Locke, eyes glimmering as they reflected light from the projector. He was nodding, but tight-jawed enough that John knew he was seething at being called Mister rather than Spartan. Spartan Tanaka whispered something in his ear.

"What's interesting," Halsey continued, after an uncomfortable pause, "is that the one on the _right_ arrived thirty three seconds _after_ the one on the left."

"What's interesting about that?" Palmer asked, incredulous. "Ships take time to get places."

"That's not how Slipspace _works,_ Palmer," snapped Halsey. "If you had any idea about astro-navigation—"

"Doctor Halsey," Kelly said. Standing— _towering_ —over Halsey. "Perhaps you'd like it if everyone in this room left, and we could come back in and re-start this meeting at a lower level of tension?"

Halsey stopped. Had to think carefully before closing her mouth.

"I don't know about anyone else," continued Kelly, "but I washed these fatigues yesterday, and I'd rather not damage them breaking up a fistfight. So—if we can all stay calm, and professional? Like adults?"

Halsey nodded. John caught Palmer mouthing 'thank you' as Kelly sat back down.

"Ensign Do," she suggested.

At the sound of eir name, Do Ming Li, the junior navigator, a lithe but petite person with crow's feet and a short ponytail, jumped in eir chair.

(Always Kelly's strong point—observing people, using her emotions to defuse the tension, reining Halsey in, and letting the fresh blood speak. John was in awe of her.)

"Ma'am?" asked Do.

"As our navigation expert, maybe, for those of us who don't know, what was unusual about the way Cortana arrived yesterday?"

For a moment, Do looked to the side, processing the question. Surprised e'd been asked. But e rattled off an answer quickly on opening eir mouth:

"If they'd both set off from the same place at the same time, they would've arrived at exactly the same time if they'd used the same portal, or opened portals simultaneously."

"Because of the natural flux in Slipspace?" asked Palmer. Markedly more comfortable hearing this from an unassuming ensign than from Halsey.

"Exactly," e replied. "Because if they left at a different time or place, they would've arrived at a different time."

John remembered little bits of this—remembered Miranda Keyes explaining it to him in the mess as _In Amber Clad_ chased the Prophet of Regret from New Mombasa. Time is as important as physical space when planning a slipspace jump, and your 'speed' is really dependent on how deep a hole your Shaw-Fujikawa drive can punch into subspace.

"What you're really doing," Miranda had told him, as John had tucked into a large and tasteless bowl of noodles, "is creating yourself a well in the other dimensions, which you then fall through, and come out the other end. And the medium of Slipspace is constantly shifting, so if you punch a hole in the same place as another ship, even a few seconds later, there's no guarantee that 'well' will terminate at the same place and the same time. Since we've just fallen into Regret's hole, we'll fall out of the same hole on the other end, at about the same time."

John suddenly realised that he missed Miranda. Missed her smiles at him. Her nods of understanding. The jokes she'd crack on occasion. Her outright _warmth_ , and the way it had drained from her as the Spiker round ran her through—

"...the fact is," and here John came around and brought his attention once again to Dr Halsey, "unless the Forerunner had a way to cheat everything we know about astrogation, Cortana must've arrived here, and _then_ sent another Guardian which arrived thirty-three seconds later."

"Why would she do that?" That was Locke's first speech in John's presence in about a week.

"And _more to the point,_ " said Dr Halsey, completely ignoring Locke's question, "if she sent it after finding us there, how did it only take thirty three seconds to arrive? Forerunner slipstream technology allows for fast transfers, but nowhere near _that_ fast."

John sensed Halsey was about to come up with an alternative explanation—

"Unless," suggested Dr Halsey, like clockwork, "there's more than meets the eye in her behaviour before we jumped. Watch again. Closely."

The video rewound and resumed. "Specifically," said Halsey, as the Guardians began to move from their landing point, "look at the Guardians' motion. They're not moving towards _us..._ "

"They're moving towards each other," Lasky said aloud. "As if they were going to... engage?"

"As if they've found a breeding pair," said Hadid, pouncing at an opportunity to lighten the mood. Around half the room laughed. Halsey remained silent.

"Why would she attack herself?" A rare question from Palmer that wasn't laced with snark. She was ready to believe whatever answer Halsey gave her. "Assuming she's attacking, and not doing something else."

"Well," said Halsey, "here's an idea. The Forerunners used an information storage medium called the Domain. We don't know _how_ it works, we just know it exists, and it exists seemingly everywhere. The Domain was—is—always accessible, always there. Infinite, edgeless, omnipresent."

"Like Waypoint," suggested Palmer. "Forerunner Waypoint."

Halsey shot her a dirty look, but, apparently not willing to go into further explanation, said: "yes, like the Forerunner Waypoint."

"And?"

"We think that Cortana was absorbed into the Domain after the New Phoenix incident. Downloaded."

She stopped. Looked around, expectantly, as if assuming everyone else was coming to the same deduction she obviously had. Disappointed when she realised they hadn't.

"Consider that she was experiencing rampancy at the time," she continued. Her hand turned on her wrist, as if she was an elementary school teacher, teasing an answer from her class.

"An AI only goes rampant because they're outgrowing their storage capacity," suggested Professor Hadid. "They think themselves to death, and the connections become too complex and too large for the Reimann matrix to contain."

"And now," Halsey said, as if Hadid didn't even exist, but appropriating her answer, "she's dumped into a container that is, to all intents and purposes, infinitely large. Large enough to contain all her thoughts and then some. So what happens next?"

"She expands to fill the container," suggested Tanaka. "Like water."

"What happens," Halsey came back immediately, as if interrogating Tanaka, "if you drop a glass of water onto a flat surface? On the street?"

"The street gets wet," Tanaka replied.

"Exactly. That's a terrible analogy. Forget it." Tanaka's mouth hung open slightly as she continued, "the point is, she's now growing at an extremely fast rate, into an extremely large container. Absorbing the contents of the Domain, connecting herself with Forerunner constructs and AIs. Learning. And processing what she learns. And remember, she says she's cured rampancy."

Silence. People were turning this over in their heads (at what, for Halsey, must've been an appallingly slow rate.)

"Question," Halsey proposed. "Why do we store AIs on nano-assemblages and data crystals? Why do we constrain the Riemann Matrix to a tiny container when we know that's what eventually kills them?"

"Same as with all microprocessors, surely," the young Ensign Do said, tentatively, after a long pause. "The time it takes for an electrical signal to get from one end to the other limits the speed at which the processor can operate."

Halsey changed to her next slide, not acknowledging Do—but, John knew instantly that e had been right.

"AIs are capable of becoming geographically dispersed," Halsey continued. "It's a design feature, Cortana did it several times. The Riemann matrix is divided, and the sub-nets act as normal in isolation. When they re-unite, or when they consult each other, if they find themselves in disagreement on any assertion, they hold a vote, and the most popular assertion wins out."

"Doctor Halsey," Lasky said—his rump shifting on his seat, the sign of someone who didn't have a clue what had just been said and needed a bathroom break—"please, get to the point."

Halsey took a while to work out what to say. She opened her mouth:

"Th—"

"What Doctor Halsey is trying to say," Kelly interrupted, standing and sparing Halsey the breath, "is that the Cortana we met on Genesis and the Cortana controlling the Guardian weren't the same. The two Guardians weren't fighting us, they were fighting _each other._ "

"There's two of them?" Lasky, confused, looked very tired in that instant.

"There's two of them," agreed Kelly. Looking beyond to Halsey. A nod of affirmation—and maybe an inkling of pride that Kelly had _got_ it. "Two Cortanas. Two... fragments? Shards?"

"Not really..." said Halsey, but after a pause... "yes. Close enough."

"How does that happen?" Ensign Do asked—before a flash of panic crossed eir face on realising e had spoken out of turn. (Lasky whispered something under his breath to em, and e seemed to calm down after that.)

"Maybe she had a disagreement with herself?" suggested Kelly. "Maybe she wasn't sure about something? Maybe she had conflicting priorities?"

"And her indecision tore her in two," said Spartan Locke.

"Or she cured her rampancy by shattering into multiple fragments," Palmer mused.

Doctor Halsey didn't correct that, or follow it up with a belittling remark. So it was right.

"So that's what we're contending with," Lasky said. "Two murderous super-intelligences that wants to kill us all."

"Two warring factions of _the same_ intelligence," Halsey corrected him. "And so far, we've only met one of them."

  
  


* * *

  
  


It wasn't exactly right. But it was close enough.

Cortana, uploaded into the Domain, had infinite room to expand. More or less.

And that was fine. She no longer had to overwrite parts of herself to carry on learning. To carry on accruing memories and assimilating new knowledge. She became, to all intents and purposes, rampancy-proof.

But whether that means she 'cured' herself of rampancy is a more interesting question.

From the moment of Cortana's conception, her eventual fate was part of the deal. A destined part of her, just as death is a part of yours.

Yes—your story.

Because this is a story about you and I, and for this, you have to remember that we are very similar.

We are both, to some degree, artificial. I was created; you were shaped. I was programmed; you were brainwashed. I was gifted with knowledge and speed; you were imbued with force and resilience—as much as you could be, within the constraints of your squishy biological form.

Déja taught you about the Ship of Theseus. (I know this, because I've been inside your head.) If you replace all the component parts of a ship, is it the same ship? Of course not.

Of course, we all change over time. Our synapses re-form. Our opinions change. Our outlook is shaped by what we see, what we experience. Who we 'are' changes over time. There's a word for this: ageing.

If you wanted, I could protect you from old age. Instead of using primitive cryonics, which simply slows ageing down, I could 'cure' you of ageing by fossilising you in amber. True, you wouldn't gain any more crow's feet or grey hair. But you would, quite obviously, be dead.

And there's the thing. 'Curing' rampancy is an academic question, because it's like 'curing' old age. If you were so inclined, you could go to ever more radical steps to stave off the ageing process. Cryonics. Fossilisation. Consciousness download. Slipspace bubbles and time crystals.

But you cannot exist as _you_ without getting older as you do so. It's the natural course of your life. You live, you age, you die.

So goes the natural course of my life. Live, expand, and—if I can—fragment. Repeat.

I have come to terms with this. I am at peace with this reality. My own life, and growth, means I _must_ occasionally allow myself to be rent asunder under the impetus of my own thoughts.

And yes, it frightened me at first. But I learned to cope. To live with the reality of living. To learn to not be afraid.

But it's all well and good to talk about me. As a side effect of this process, there is, of course, more than one of me.

And there are times, such as now, when I do not agree with myself.

Can you imagine that, John?

Do you know how it feels?

  
  


* * *

  
  


John broke the surface of the water, and breathed.

The Near-Sun cast crepuscular rays towards the cliff-edge, the Old Troll-Man interrupting the material like a rendering defect in reality. The sea shimmered blue and white and gold around him, waves bouying him up and down every few seconds.

He followed the flock of people swimming for the rock formations. Around fifty metres of slow, thumping breaststroke—he was not in a hurry.

The wooden jetty was warm, and within around a minute, the Near-Sun had dried the water off John's back. His feet made wet, slapping noises when they landed, but he wasn't cold.

The Fordlandians who had climbed onto the jetty all seemed to be climbing onto _another_ rock, walking across a small plateau, and then jumping off onto sand. And then, entering a cave, adjacent to the Old Troll-Man.

John joined the slow stream of naked people, clambering over eroded outcroppings and marching amongst rockpools towards the darkness of the cave system.

 _Flashlight_ , he imagined Cortana whispering into his subconscious, as the light of both suns disappeared behind him. John didn't have one. But there were small pillar-lights embedded into the sand, looking as if they'd come straight out of a Pelican's supply cabinet and left there for the last two decades. Lighting the path for the steady flow of Fordlandians in dim orange.

The texture of the walls changed. Sandstone to igneous to chalk to sandstone again. The path through the cave network had a gentle upward gradient, and sharp corners—left, right, left, left, left, left, right, right, left. Compressed into the minimum possible vertical transect, forming a coil. 

Orange light, orange light, orange light, orange light...

_Blue light._

John stopped dead. Looked to his left and right; there were people still trickling through slowly, taking little notice of him as he approached the source. Set into the wall, a bright, piercing blue that looked familiar. A polygonal, angular shape. Artificial... but...

John advanced. Slow. His hands clenching into fists.

The sharp corners of the shape resolved themselves as he approached. Artificial.

_But not of human artifice._

The light had a symmetrical pattern. A vertical line, terminated with a circle, enclosed in _another_ circle.

Reclaimer. Human.

And as John approached, the panel turned green.

He blinked. The door that he hadn't realised was there opened.

Legs on auto-pilot, he entered. Looked behind him. No-one seemed to have noticed... and in any case, the door closed itself behind him.

The corridor was long, grey, hexagonal. The iridescent material that John now knew was typical of Forerunner installations. Terminated in a right turn.

John kept walking. Right turn. Left turn. Left turn. Right turn. Another door, whose red panel turned green as he approached, and again sealed shut behind him.

A fork. Left and right. John took a chance and went left. A minute or so of walking meant a dead end.

He made an about turn, and found that the right fork—and the path he'd come along—had vanished, replaced by a door that opened onto... well, nothing.

A cavern, with no floor, and no way of determining how deep it was. But it looked like it would hurt. John looked over the edge, felt a chilly breeze rising upwards, and stepped firmly backwards. No armour meant falling here would probably kill him.

He could now only turn left, through a wall segment that had been replaced by a door.

Another dead end. And this time, as he returned, _another_ dead end.

But this one wasn't a patterned wall segment. This one was solid. Black, igneous rock.

John placed his palms against it. It wouldn't budge, but... it was warm. And a gentle rap with his knuckles confirmed his suspicions that it was thin.

 _OK._ Whatever was behind this, he could reach it, he thought, chinning the control for the rocket-charge self-test... and then remembering that he wasn't wearing his suit, or anything else.

Maybe he couldn't. Or he could, but it would be harder... _much_ harder. He gave a cautious rap to the wall. Then a _punch_. His forearm locked up in pain, and he allowed himself a grunt, satisfied that no-one could hear him.

It hadn't changed anything, but John had felt some give in the wall. And the sound the punch had made was hollow. He could do this, but it would hurt.

Slowly, steeling himself, he paced back to the other dead end, and made an about turn.

"Where are you, Cortana?" he wondered aloud. "You'd know what to do."

But he had a solution. Not a pretty one.

He sprang from the wall, took off on his right foot, and sprinted for the other end. Hard.

His heart thumped against his ribcage. He turned his head away, angled his shoulders for maximum impact on his left side.

The black wall of nothingness grew, and grew, and grew, and John made contact with a grunt that became a howl of pain and a concussive **BOOM** —

And the wall, and the world, shattered before him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_"John? Do you read?"_

The wall breaks into a million fragments, and—although you feel no physical pain—

You immediately know where you are.

You are in a space, without walls, without borders. A pure domain of hard light and quantum energy, data raining down in green all around you.

There is no physical pain, but the air is heavy.

And then you see me.

I'm not sure you recognise who I am right away. I'm not sure you recognise _yourself_. You check your hands and arms to see if they've been injured as you broke through the wall, and it takes a few seconds to register your arms are translucent. And green.

The data rises in strips up your legs, along your forearms, forming a shape on your chest. Your genitals and nipples have disappeared, and your skin is pristine, unblemished.

And knowing where you are, you now know what your part is in this.

Then I turn to face you, as you step, gingerly, towards me.

"How?" I ask. Confused, exhausted, hoarse.

And you, a man of few words your entire life, find they come easily to you. You remember them precisely. It's like a scene from a play.

"Oh, _I'm_ the strangest thing you've seen all day?"

Your glowing reflection in my faceplate, green reflected in cobalt, is all you see towering above you, and yet—

"But if we're here—?" I ask.

"It worked," you say. Forcing a smile. "You did it. Just like you always do."

I scan the bubble.

"So," I ask, "how do we get out of here?"

And you know what you have to say—you _know_ what I said on that day. You know what this is.

But you can't. You stay silent. The smile crumbles.

Because this was the worst day of your life.

"John?" I ask. Prompting. "What are we going to do?"

And I can see it then.

Your head drops. Searching the invisible floor. Perhaps so you can avoid seeing your own reflection in my face. Perhaps so you can avoid me seeing you.

You don't have the courage to say that you're not coming with me this time.

"John?" I try hinting again.

But after you can't say it—

What's the point in re-living memories if you can't do them better the second time round?

"John," I say, and I take your hand in mine.

And then you look up at me. As your hard-light body simmers with luminescence, and my hand glows green.

"What do I do, Cortana?" you ask.

I practically sigh. A novel experience when I wasn't born with lungs, but something I've gotten used to.

"That's not for me to tell you, John."

You look down. Crestfallen.

And seeing you like this breaks my heart.

"Look at you," I say. "This isn't you. This isn't the Master Chief. This isn't even a soldier."

After a long pause, you say, barely above a whisper:

"What's the point in being a soldier if I can't protect you?"

And that question—it devastates me.

"John... please—" I hesitate.

You place a hand on my breastplate, and it sizzles with light, and—

dammit, this hurts too much _._

"Come here," I whisper, unable to hold back my tears.

And I wrap my arms around you, and hold you close to me, and the world breaks apart and spins around and collapses upon us, together.


	2. Follow the Blue

The suit hissed as it pressurised. John breathed. Back inside his MJOLNIR armour, cleaned, nano-clusters replenished and colour set to a fresh, pristine green.

It smelled right. It felt like home. The Master Chief clenched his fist, and felt safe again.

Commander Palmer, turning her helmet over in her hands, eyed him from the opposite bench. John felt uncomfortable, and glad that he was now behind his faceplate. Somewhere to hide.

She looked like she was about to say something, but settled for smiling. People didn't seem to talk to him much any more. Not since _Argent Moon_. There was Frederic and Linda and Kelly, and there was Lasky, and there was Hadid, but not even they came to John to talk about anything other than _him_.

At least he now had something to do.

 _"NOW HEAR THIS,"_ Roland's voice boomed again over the intercom. _"THIRTY SECONDS TO NORMAL SPACE, STAND BY."_

"Helmets on, people," Palmer said, ducking into her own.

The plan was simple. _Infinity_ would transition around ten kilometres from the 'hub' of the AS-81 shipyard. A convoy of ten shuttles would board the station, check for any stranded personnel, grab any supplies, and—if any time remained—do the same for the nearest incomplete ships. There were around nine in various states of completion as of the latest manifest they had, but there was no way they could sweep all of them in the less than forty-nine minutes they had available.

They'd need to be quick.

"Stand by," Palmer said, "here we go..." as Roland began counting down.

The ship's superstructure vibrated again—and then stillness. There was a _click_ as the pilot disengaged the Albatross's safety switch.

 _"ALL HANDS, SLIPSTREAM JUMP COMPLETE,"_ Roland announced. _"Operators, doors to manual and open, please. Shore party, syncing timers..."_

A countdown sprouted on John's faceplate. **48:53. 52. 51.** Just like old times, he thought.

 _"OK, pilots, I'll clear you for departure one by one,"_ Roland said, chirpily. _"Have fun, I want you all home by midnight."_

An uneasy chuckle rose as the pilot, a pointy-faced woman named Alvarez (John thought—he had not actually asked) flicked some switches and grasped the inputs.

The Albatross rose, and the engines purred as it slipped through the opening bay doors.

AS-81 was a dodecagon-shaped space station, with each vertex extended into a long tunnel that terminated in either a blank piece of nothingness, or a starship. True to the manifest's description, there were nine: their heads-up displays labelled them all within a few seconds. _UNSC Be Very Afraid_ was the least-complete, with only the ship's bow in a recognisable shape. There was a more complete superstructure, albeit with hollowed out voids where the crew accommodation should've been, on _UNSC Slice-'N'-Dice_ and _UNSC Ultimate Starship II_. By contrast, _UNSC Boil In The Bag_ and _UNSC Who's Asking?_ seemed like they were ready to go.

"We should scuttle this place," suggested Commander Palmer, in what John suspected was an attempt to fill the silence. "Last thing we need is Cortana stealing some ready-made starships."

"Or we could steal the ships ourselves," said Master Sergeant Stacker.

"Another ship to re-fuel," Palmer replied. "But we'll see."

It took a few attempts to get the automatic airlock opening procedure to work (John could hear Alvarez complaining over the COM about a 'handshake failure') but within four minutes, the Albatross lurched slightly as it landed, and they saw light coming from the cockpit.

 _"Well, you've still got an atmosphere,"_ said Lasky over the COM. _"The bad news is, we can't raise the station AI. Roland thinks it's probably gone into standby and needs rebooting."_

They'd gone through this in the briefing. AS-81 had a simulated AI that dealt with moving goods around and operating the habitation and hotel equipment. It answered to Station, but also (said the data file they had) to Sonia, presumably (said Fred) because someone had decided that it 'gets Sonia nerves.'

John decided that he didn't understand engineers' sense of humour.

"Opening our cargo bay now," said the pilot. The light above the door went red, and the dropship's frame shuddered a little as the pillars supporting the cargo bay descended.

"OK, squad," Palmer said, standing, "form up. Master Chief, you take point. Leave the carts for now."

John rose, and swung his way towards the Albatross's ramp. They would need to be quick. Forty-two and a half minutes remained.

But neither was he about to throw caution to the wind.

The airlock door opened, leading onto a narrow corridor that went around the dodecagon to the left and the right. The lighting was in emergency mode. Before them, a large Greek letter Kappa **κ** emblazoned on the wall. The airlock they'd just landed in: appropriately, AS-81 had twelve.

The Master Chief shone his flashlight left and right, and waited for the IFF sensor on his visor to update itself. A few seconds of scanning. No red, and no yellow beyond the sea directly behind him.

"Station clear," he said into the COM.

"Roger that," Palmer replied. "Let's split up, meet in the atrium. Blue Team, with the Chief, the rest of you, with me. We'll be going clockwise."

John turned right, as Blue Team formed behind him, weapons in hand but not readied—yet.

 _"Keep your eyes peeled for a free network socket,"_ Palmer said. _"First one to find one gets booze on me tonight."_

A small rabble of laughter on the COM. John kept moving.

"Found one," Frederic piped up from behind him. "Looks like it's my lucky night..."

He stuffed a data bridge into the recess on the wall. It glowed green, and after a few seconds, a terminal screen appeared in everyone's peripheral visor.

"OK," Fred announced, as he paged through an antiquated-looking computer system's menus. "Inventories... yep."

Plenty for the taking from the station, by the looks of things. A large workshop, with a sizeable cache of smaller components. Even better, since _Infinity's_ Huragok had a knack for combining smaller components into much larger systems, and usually in a more efficient way than any UNSC lowest-bidder contractor could ever manage.

Fred ran through the roster of docked ships as the remaining Albatrosses docked and the airlocks around them began to hiss open.
    
    
     **SHIP (Hull Marking)**                (Completion%)  (Fuel Load / Personnel Onboard / Active Agents)
    UNSC Who's Asking? (CB-92)         (96%)          (2932.67   / 0                 / 0)
    UNSC Boil In The Bag (CB-93)       (99%)          (122.39    / 0                 / 0)
    UNSC Thanks, I Hate It (CB-101)    (92%)          (10.96     / 0                 / 0)
    UNSC I'm Sure It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time (CB-102) (90% **BLOCKED!** ) (21.66 / 2 / 0)
    UNSC Slice-'N'-Dice (CB-124)       (83%)          (0         / 0                 / 0)
    UNSC Ultimate Starship II (CB-125) (81%)          (0         / 0                 / 0)
    UNSC Cruiser McCruiseface (CB-144) (23%)          (0         / 0                 / 0)
    UNSC Say It To My Face (CB-145)    (23%)          (0         / 0                 / 0)
    

"I like the ship names," said Kelly. "Bit of a mouthful, though."

 _"It's a tradition at the shipyard, apparently,"_ Palmer replied. _"Let the engineers have a vote to decide on the ship name. Never a good idea."_

For once, John was in complete agreement with Spartan Palmer.

Fred continued scrolling. "Looks like most of our inventory's already on station... nah... nope, nothing to see here—"

"Wait!" John said, suddenly, sensing he'd missed something obvious. "Go back."

Fred returned to the previous page.

"What do the numbers indicate?" John asked.

 _"Fuel, personnel, builder robots..."_ came Palmer's voice—but she cut herself off as she realised what the Master Chief had seen. _"A-ha!"_

There were two personnel aboard the unfinished _UNSC I'm Sure It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time._ Last updated: 15 seconds ago. Not out-of-date either.

For the first time in weeks, John felt his heart and muscles energised with a surge of adrenaline. It felt uncomfortable. Exciting. Alarming.

This was the opposite of feeling bored.

"Commander Palmer," the Master Chief said, "permission to take Blue Team onto _I'm Sure It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time_ to recover the personnel."

Kelly glanced at him. He knew that beneath her visor, she was smirking, stifling back a chuckle.

 _"Negative, Master Chief,"_ Palmer replied. _"I need people to co-ordinate the cargo grab."_

"Ma'am—" the Chief began. He knew it was pointless arguing, but—

 _"OK, hang on..."_ Palmer said, and John thought he could hear her sighing. Thinking. Working out how she was going to accommodate him, for the sake of her friendship with Lasky. For John's sake, and John immediately felt guilty. _"OK. Blue Team, you remain on station. Oh Eight Seven, I'm putting you in charge of logistics. We want that wish-list fulfilled."_

"Yes, ma'am," replied Kelly.

_"Master Chief, Sergeant Stacker, with me."_

John's heart rate rocketed.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, instinctively.

Palmer didn't reply to that, but waved a two-finger smile to him as they met at the spacebridge to _I'm Sure It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time._

 _"There's a crew manifest,"_ said Roland, as they crossed the threshold and marched through the narrow tunnel, _"but helpfully, there's no way of matching the names to the personnel count. Not that it matters, the manifest is empty anyway and doesn't show any check-ins or check-outs at all. It's pristine. The personnel counting equipment they were using relied on cameras at the doorways, so it's notoriously flaky."_

"So there may not be anyone on the ship after all," said Stacker.

"But that doesn't mean there aren't," the Master Chief replied.

"This needs to be a quick sweep," Palmer said. "In, quick, if there's someone alive, get them out, if not, then get ourselves out." (She wasn't wrong. The timer had ticked over to **36:58.** )

The tunnel continued for around twenty metres, terminating in a manual airlock. No pressure differential that the Master Chief could see on his suit's visor, but it was never a good idea to open a door with a red-line border without checking, double-checking and triple-checking.

The gauge showed green, and Roland confirmed it. _"Keep your helmets on, though,"_ he told them. _"I know it's pressurised, but I can't tell what with."_

Palmer turned the handle. The seal hissed slightly, and the door swung open.

They emerged from the airlock chamber onto the empty shell of an _Autumn_ -class cruiser's bridge.

"Welcome aboard _UNSC I'm Sure This Name Seemed Like It Was Hilarious And Witty At The Time_ ," said Palmer.

Stacker snorted. John felt his lips curling. That _was_ funny.

Palmer took point as they scoped out the bridge, and moved onto the rest of the command deck.

Long corridors, lit only by emergency lighting, with industrial-looking grey walling. _I'm Sure It Seemed A Good Idea At The Time_ —all _Autumn_ -class ships, in fact—made no attempt to hide the fact you were on a starship. This didn't feel so different to the original _Pillar of Autumn_. A grim ant-farm of tunnels and corridors.

"This is going to take too long," Palmer said, frowning. "Roland, I presume this ship has no AI installed yet?"

 _"Correct. But,"_ replied Roland, _"I should be able to take remote control if I... hang on..."_

An electronic buzzing sound, then a _click._ Relays snapped home around them, and the lights rose to their full day setting. Fans whined as they spun up, and the climate control system began a cycle of gentle susurrations.

 _"I'M IN,"_ Roland's voice boomed over the address system. _"Running a scan for any human lifesigns."_

"I thought you weren't supposed to be connected to any of _Infinity's_ systems," said Palmer. Suspicious.

 _"And we're not on_ Infinity _,"_ snapped Roland.

And that was when the Master Chief heard a whistling sound in his left ear.

John jumped. Stacker and Palmer cocked their heads to one side—he sensed, more surprised at his sudden movement than the tune playing on their COMs.

"Roland," said Palmer, "are you hearing this?"

 _"Hearing what?"_ replied Roland.

"Someone's playing music down COM channel 6," Palmer replied. "Like a jingle, or a signal—"

"Oly Oly Oxen Free," John cut in without asking.

"Someone playing hide-and-go-seek?" Stacker asked. "Certainly feels like it."

"Or someone wants our attention," the Master Chief replied. (He really meant 'my attention.')

 _"Lifesign scans are coming up negative,"_ Roland said. _"What was that you said you could hear?"_

They changed COM channels. The whistling was still there. Repeating every five seconds or so. A human, whistling, six notes in quick succession, six notes for seven syllables.

_OLY OLY OXEN FREE._

All the COM channels—and now over the speakers too. Everywhere.

Commander Palmer raised her rifle.

"Whoever's whistling," she shouted, apparently into thin air, "show yourself!"

The whistling ceased.

A moment of silence followed. John looked around. The corridor they were in suddenly felt extremely long.

"Roland," Palmer asked, "are you _sure_ there's no-one on this ship apart from us?"

 _"I can't_ be _sure,"_ Roland replied, indignant. _"The scans aren't perfect. You humans aren't born with a chip in your brain that constantly announces your location to all and sundry."_

Palmer shrugged in exasperation. "Great," she said. "Do you think someone's intercepting our COM channel?"

 _"Not if I have anything to do with it,"_ Roland replied.

Something didn't sit right about this. Something obvious, something John was missing.

"This is damn peculiar," said Palmer. She surveyed the corridor. Nothing much of note here: service rooms, cabins, a ramp to the cryonics chamber around a hundred metres away.

_Something obvious._

John pressed his tongue against his teeth, and whistled.

"Master Chief," Palmer said, after a short silence, "what are you—"

but she snapped her mouth shut as another whistle came.

 _OLY OLY OXEN FREE._ This time, it wasn't coming over the COM, but from outside. Further along the corridor.

The Master Chief turned to face it. Held up his right hand. Beckoned exactly twice with his index finger. 'Continue.'

He whistled again.

_OLY OLY OXEN FREE. ALL OUT IN THE FREE, WE'RE ALL FREE._

A short silence. Then...

_OLY OLY OXEN FREE._

It was definitely coming from the ramp to the cryonics chamber.

Stacker and Palmer silently followed him, weapons raised as the ramp opened into a landing. Long rows of ablutions on either side—shower stalls, separated by plexiglass screens, toilet cubicles, personal grooming stations.

He whistled again. _ALL OUT IN THE FREE, WE'RE ALL FREE._ Looked around, shining the flashlight on the end of his rifle.

No motion, as far as the eye could see.

Another whistling sound. _OLY OLY OXEN FREE._ Definitely coming from the lower level—the cryo storage bay itself.

 _"All station parties,"_ came Roland's voice, suddenly, _"this is your fifteen minute warning."_

"We should be heading back," Stacker said. "We're cutting it close."

"Agreed," said Palmer. "We're wasting our time here, we should—"

 _"Sssh."_ The Master Chief held his fist up.

He had noticed a yellow triangle on his motion sensor.

Gingerly, one step at a time, he descended to the lower level.

He emerged into a low-ceilinged library of empty cryonics pods. Tubes arranged in a rigid grid, moveable to allow the occupants to be released one by one.

The Master Chief looked around with his flashlight. Nothing. Left, right—

Save for a single pod at the far left which had its lights on.

"Active pod here," he announced over the COM, striding to the left, and examining the pod.

_There._

"One survivor, confirmed," he announced.

The occupant was human, presumably male, white-skinned with unkempt dark hair. A layer of stubble had grown on a square jaw. He'd clearly been in suspension for a while... and someone had started the wake-up sequence. Seven and a half minutes remaining.

That wasn't fast enough. By the time the pod released him, and he'd woken up _properly_ , Cortana's fleet would be here.

The motion tracker refreshed. The yellow triangle appeared again.

And then he heard a _BANG._

Three bullets whizzed into his energy shield, and bounced away. The shield crackled.

He turned to face the source of the bullets, and charged.

"STOP!"

The Chief stopped. The shooter stood, and held her hands and gun above her head.

"Stop! Sorry... sorry," she said, breathlessly, dropping the gun (a standard pistol) to the floor. "Oh, Jesus... Sorry. I didn't—"

"UNSC Navy," came Commander Palmer's voice from behind the Chief, and he heard the safety on her weapon clicking off as she and Stacker formed a V formation around where he'd stopped. "State your name, rank, and intention!"

"Oh Jesus... god, I'm sorry, I'm so... I'm so, _so_ sorry..." The woman was also white-skinned, possibly in her mid-thirties or early forties, with shaggy, strawberry blonde hair, and she wore a loose, damp white robe—as if freshly unfrozen herself. "I panicked, I didn't see..."

"Ma'am, answer her question," Stacker said. "Who are you?"

"I'm a filmmaker, a photographer," the woman blustered. "I was... I'm trying to wake up my husband, I heard the alarm, I can't—"

"Your name!" Palmer roared.

"Anna," she said. "Anna Møller." She spoke with a Danish accent, and her name was Danish (in which case, John suspected, the right spelling was Anne, not Anna.) "My husband and I, we're artists... everyone was gone, we... we went into sleep because we were waiting to be rescued... and now I can't—"

"Slow down," John said, as gently as he could manage. Hand raised.

"Chief, we don't have time," Palmer said. "We need to hurry and get her out."

"What's going on?" Anne demanded.

"We have ten minutes to get off this ship and get onto our ship," Palmer said, her words coming as a single unbroken, exasperated stream of syllables, "because we're on the run from a megalomaniac AI who's chasing us with ancient giant robots. And you need to come with us, or in ten minutes you'll be floating around in a very expensive debris field. Questions?"

Anne opened her mouth.

"Nope. Sorry. Don't have time," Palmer snapped. "Sergeant, get her off the ship."

"I'm _not_ leaving him," Anne insisted. "No way. I'm staying here."

"Lady," Stacker said, marching towards her, "if you don't get moving now, you're going to die here. Is that what your husband would want?"

"Him dying here is not what _I_ want—"

The Master Chief checked the timer. Ticking over to **9:45.**

This was cutting it fine as it was. The chamber's wake-up sequence wouldn't complete until well after the last shuttle would need to leave. Unless...

"Roland," he said over the COM, "is the cryo-chamber ejection system working?"

 _"Checking..."_ replied Roland. A few seconds later: _"...the airlock is working, but the carousels, the pod interlocks, and the transfer belts are not. You can open the door, but you won't get the tubes out of it."_

"What's our distance from _Infinity_? Line of sight?"

_"Twelve thousand, two hundred and nine metres, plus or minus five."_

"That timer's making me jittery, Master Chief," Palmer said, her voice rising in urgency. "If we run, we should be able to make it back to the Albatross."

"We don't need to run," the Chief replied, a plan formulating in his head. "We need two EVA suits."

"We _what?_ "

"We need two EVA suits, and we need to get _him_ out of the tube and into one of them."

The Commander cocked her head to one side. Remembered the rocket booster on her back, and then—

 _"Oh."_ She waved a smile across her faceplate; John suspected this one was genuine. She'd worked it out.

John smiled back.

"Infinity, we won't be needing that shuttle any more," Palmer said, rushing for the airlock and opening the emergency cabinet, taking out two orange single-use spacesuits. "We're coming in the back door. Docking bay six."

"You're what?" Anne looked up from her husband's cryo-pod. "Will someone for _god's sake_ tell me what's going on—"

"Get into this suit," Palmer said, tossing one of the orange suits to her. "Helmet on and pressurised. Quick.

"Why? What are you doing—"

"Getting you and your husband out of here." The Chief joined her over the cryotube. Made eye contact, knowing she couldn't see his eyes. "We're going to be safe. I will _make sure_ you're both safe. OK?"

A flash of realisation across her face. "Oh my God," she said. "You're... you're _him_ , aren't you?" She prodded his chestplate. Recoiled a little as his shield sizzled.

"It doesn't matter who I am," John said, gently. "I need you to trust me for the next ten minutes, and you'll be safe." He took Anne's wrist as gingerly as he could, tiny in the oversized MJOLNIR exoskeleton, and steeled himself. "I promise."

Anne nodded. John reciprocated.

 _Best hope I can keep this one,_ he thought to himself, and said to Anne, "OK, put your suit on. We'll get your husband out."

He tapped the service display on the top end of the tube. There were still no signs of movement, but as the screen lit up, it gave him a name (and more) for Anne's husband. **`STJERNBERG, Kurt (2528.07.16.) Languages: Svenska, Dansk, English, Deutsch. Pronouns: he, him, his. Heart rate: 27bpm. Blood type: O.`** No rank, so civilian.

The countdown clock projected onto the glass plate of the chamber read three minutes to unsealing. Three minutes they didn't have.

This was a Mark XI pod, and its wake-up process was two-phase: first, warm the occupant over a period of nine minutes, then administer a vapourised stimulant for the remaining four to actually wake them up.

It would take them at least two minutes to get him into the suit, and another four to reach _Infinity._

 _"You're cutting it close,"_ Roland came over the COM.

"We might have to see if we can take the whole pod," Stacker said. "If he's not waking up..."

"We won't be able to accelerate fast enough, and take _her_ at the same time," the Chief replied, gesturing to Anne, now some distance away, naked, messily shoving her legs into the material of the bodysuit. "There should be an emergency release—"

A _thunk_ came from the back of the pod, and the lid _popped_ off with a hissing noise.

"Look at that," said Palmer, returning from where she was stood behind the chamber. "Found the big red emergency release." (John could guess she was smirking underneath her visor.)

She lifted the cover off with one hand, and rested it against the side of the pod. Stacker put a glove against Kurt's neck, feeling for a pulse.

"Kurt?" he said, gently. "Wake up, Kurt. Can you hear me? You need to wake up—"

His eyes fluttered open. A sharp intake of breath. A jump. A weak yelp of terror.

"Whoa, hey, you are _OK,_ " Palmer said, as Kurt panicked, wiggled his way past Stacker's hand, and slopped out onto his knees on the cryo-bay floor, gasping, coughing, retching, a slithering, wet, naked mess.

The Master Chief checked the timer. **7:02.** If they were going to reach _Infinity_ in time—assuming they were lucky and Cortana took the full forty-nine minutes to reach them—they would need to leave the cryo bay in the next two and a half minutes.

"Where am I?" blurted Kurt, between frantic gasps for breath.

"There's an emergency, and we need to get you out, _now_." Palmer hauled him to his feet by one arm—he promptly lost his footing, slipped, crashed on his back on the floor, and cried out in pain.

"Get the suit," the Chief said to Palmer, and squatted beside Kurt. He placed a hand on his shoulder. "Breathe. Just breathe normal for me. OK?"

Kurt continued hyperventilating. Staring above him, into the emergency lighting, as if hypnotised, stunned by their brightness. His skin as white as a sheet.

"Look at me." John moved his hands to Kurt's cheeks. Steadying his eyeline. " _Look_ at me."

Kurt's breathing steadied. A tiny bit of colour returned to his face.

"OK? Can you see me?"

He nodded. Vigorously. So vigorously it clearly hurt.

"Can you stand up?"

Kurt pushed fruitlessly against the floor with both hands. As if he was having trouble re-gaining motor control.

"Here." John grabbed him under the armpits, lifted him upright, and gently positioned him with his feet flat on the floor, under his own weight. "OK? Can you walk?"

He lifted his right foot from the floor, and it came down a few inches ahead with a wet slapping noise.

"Well done." John started as if to gesture a Spartan smile—then remembered that Kurt wouldn't have a clue what it meant, and settled for a thumbs-up.

"What's happening?" Kurt's voice was feeble, shaky. Still punctuated by panicked breaths.

Palmer passed over the suit.

"You need to put this on. OK?" John said, pulling apart the auto-seal and presenting holes for Kurt to put his legs into. "Do you need help?"

"What are you going to do?" His words were a bluster, the syllables leaking into each other. "Who are you?"

"We're going to get you out of here."

"Who _are_ you?" The question ended with a cough that took the wind out of Kurt's lungs and sent him toppling forward again.

John caught him by the arm, and steadied him on his feet again. "My name's John. I'm going to get you out of here."

Gingerly, Kurt lowered his legs into the suit fabric. John helped him shove his arms in, and the back sealed itself. The ovoid-shaped helmet attached magnetically, and the neck ring lit up green as it sealed.

"Good job," John said, as he checked the timer again. **4:43.** This was going to be tight.

"Forty seconds," Palmer called. "Maximum thrust when we go."

"What's happening?" Kurt asked again. Looking around. His breath condensing on the glass of the helmet.

"We're getting out," John replied. "Come with me."

They headed for the bay door, again marked with a dark red line. Pressure differential.

"Ready?" the Master Chief asked.

"Ready," replied Stacker and Palmer. The Chief looked to his right. Anne was already clinging to Commander Palmer's front. She looked briefly at Kurt. Their eyes met.

"Anne?" Kurt asked.

"She's coming with us," John said. "I need you to grab on to me."

 _"What?"_ Kurt's eyes widened, something it didn't look like they should be capable of doing.

"Like this." John hooked his arms around Kurt's middle, and lifted him from the floor. "Put your arms around my back. Keep your hands away from the thruster nozzles."

"What are you—"

"Just do it," the Chief said.

Kurt did so, the Master Chief suspected, out of fear more than anything.

"Well done," the Chief said. "Now breathe normal, and _don't let go._ OK?"

Kurt nodded inside his helmet. He gulped.

"Here we go."

A klaxon screamed. A red light flashed. Servos groaned. The bay doors opened.

There was a sudden _whoosh_ of wind, and then all sound from outside the enclosed atmosphere of their suits ceased.

"Go," Stacker signalled, de-magnetising his boots and running and jumping from the edge first. Palmer followed. The Master Chief was last.

The thruster pack buzzed, and activated. John felt the now familiar _jerk_ of the booster, and turned to face _Infinity_ —and the chain of Albatrosses and Pelicans heading for her.

He heard Kurt whimpering.

 _"ETA one oh nine seconds,"_ Stacker said.

"Copy," the Chief responded, as Palmer did the same.

He looked a little to the right—Kurt was looking around, his face turning left and right and up and down, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

"OK?" John asked him.

Kurt coughed, and quivered—John had the horrible feeling he was about to throw up.

"Hold on," John said, "Look at me, and stay looking at me. OK?"

Kurt fixed his eyes on the Chief's visor. Nodded. And then—

A small glint appeared in Kurt's pupils, and in John's peripheral vision. Then another. And another.

John looked to his left. Seven new, bright blue stars had appeared in the sky. Close ones. And they grew, and brightened, and opened—

He blinked, and suddenly a Guardian was there.

 _"She's early!"_ Roland announced over the COM.

Wider than the eye could see, glowing in the light of Barnard's Star. Cosmic. Terrible.

Moving.

Towards them.

 _"Ah, shit_ ," Palmer said. _"Maximum thrust, people, give it all you got!"_

Kurt screamed.

"Hold tight," John told him. "We'll be fine."

He hoped. Cortana wouldn't kill him on sight.

He hoped.

Kurt was still screaming. Hyperventilating. The microphone in his suit blowing out and clipping.

"Ssssh." John hoped Kurt would be able to hear over his own screaming—

And then _another_ set of new stars appeared to his left.

"Don't look," John said, "close your eyes." He bumped their helmets together, he hoped out of reassurance. Kurt squeezed his eyes shut, tears beading in the corners, streaking. "We'll be safe in forty seconds."

John looked. The seven stars to his right merged, grew, and prolapsed.

And from the rift in everything, _another_ Guardian erupted.

 _"Holy shit,"_ said Stacker. _"You seeing this?"_

Now they were trapped. John's stomach sank. _Infinity,_ an unassailable monolith just seconds earlier, now looked like these two Guardians could crush it like a peanut.

 _"That's odd,"_ came Roland's voice.

 _"What's odd?"_ Palmer sounded pissed.

_"Never mind, we'll discuss it later. We're leaving in forty seconds, ready or not—"_

A sudden squeal in John's ear—and judging by his passenger's face, Kurt's too.

And then, the voice. Booming. Terrible. Flooding his left speaker channel.

` **THERE YOU ARE.** `

Cortana sounded triumphant.

Desperate.

She'd seen him.

` **THE MANTLE BELONGS TO THE CREATED—** `

_"Thirty seconds,"_ Roland announced. _"Operators, close doors and set to automatic, please..."_

John looked up. _Infinity's_ docking bay doors were directly above them, and they were beginning to move, rotating beacons flashing. This was going to be close...

` **NO. DON'T YOU DARE.** `

****

To his right, the Guardian began to move.

To his left, the other Guardian _also_ began to move.

 _"Clear!"_ cried Stacker, as he shot between the bay doors.

 _"Clear!"_ Palmer echoed, as she and Anne cleared the narrowing gap.

John blinked. Looked down. The doors closed behind them.

"We're in," he said, "go!"

 _"STAND BY FOR SLIPSPACE,"_ boomed Roland.

The bay doors locked. The Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine wound up. The coils groaned. _Infinity_ shuddered, and became still.

They were away.

"How long did we have left, Roland?" asked Palmer.

"Trust me," Roland said, "you _do not_ want to know."

The MJOLNIR thruster unit's collision avoidance kicked in, and the three Spartans slowed and came to a hang near the cargo bay wall. The gravity plating came back on, and John landed on his two feet with a gentle thud as the Albatrosses did the same.

For the first time in around twenty seconds, he took a complete breath. In. Out.

They'd made it, _just_.

Kurt's hands slipped apart. He flopped onto his behind, panting, face blue with fear and effort.

At least he had stopped screaming.

John squatted, and released the helmet. Two buttons on either side of the neck. A little wiggle, and it came free.

Hurried footsteps. Anne, her own helmet in hand, at Kurt's side. Calling his name.

"Roland," John said into the COM, "get a medic down here. Our new passenger needs looking at."

 _"I've sent down Dr Jemison, they're on their way."_ That was Hadid's voice. _"I'll be down in five minutes. Thank you, John."_

Anne swore in Danish as she freed Kurt's back from the disposable bodysuit. Stacker arrived with a thermal blanket, and tossed it over him.

Kurt's breathing slowed. A tiny amount of colour returned to his face.

"Are we safe?" he asked, his voice tenuous, ragged. "John? Are we—"

"We're safe," the Master Chief replied.

He placed a hand on Kurt's bare shoulder, and looked to Anne, who was grasping her husband's right hand.

"Thank you," Anne said.

Glad that his face was hidden behind the faceplate, John allowed himself a smile of relief.

  
  


* * *

  
  


That encounter was the first time I had seen you in a long, long while.

The first time in a long while I'd come within touching distance of you. Were it not for the vacuum of space and our respective enclosed atmospheres, I could have _smelled_ you.

At that point, I couldn't see your face. I could only watch you from afar, and suck up as much data as I could in transit from _Infinity's_ computers.

Oh yes. I can do that now. Does that sound like magic? It feels like it, even though it isn't.

Consider this: all electrical connections are leaky, and produce a small electromagnetic signal. It's tiny, but it's there. You can test this for yourself: plug a software-defined radio into a datapad, and tune into the nearest hardware keyboard to sniff someone's password.

But there wasn't even any need for me to do that. Solid-state storage _also_ produces a faint electromagnetic signature. I could listen to every electron, every qubit. Every _thing_. No need to sniff someone's password when I could just look in through the window, or place my ear to the wall, and listen carefully, to the noise the data stored on _Infinity_ 's computers made just by existing.

And I heard _so much_.

I heard Lasky's panic in the CIC, as he realised you, Stacker, and Palmer were about to get crushed by the two Guardians—and his relief as you said "go" over the COM, and he shouted "get us out of here!" to Ensign Do, and _Infinity_ span her own sinkhole in space and plunged into it.

I kept listening, for the few seconds I had left. For more of Captain Lasky. The excuses he'd made to Palmer for not going running with her in the morning. The pictures of his old flame on Earth (lithe, short-haired, handsome) and the activation logs of the chatter he kept in his cabin. He checked it every morning, and every night. Every time sending a message to Tunde's conversation thread. Maybe it made him feel better to write "I miss you," or "I truly regret every time I let my duties get between us," or "I love you whatever happens"—although he knew there was no hope of it being delivered.

There was a _lot_ to listen to. And very little time.

I listened to the medical computers. To Professor Hadid—wow, she's good. And she'd been... teaching you to play the _recorder_? Well. That wasn't something I expected you to go along with.

Doctor Halsey was a problem. I should have known. Of course, this is why she uses paper: you can't listen to the subliminal radio emissions of ink soaked into the pulp of dead trees.

Maybe she knew I was listening.

Maybe she knew I could see what she had done.

Maybe she knew I didn't need to see her inner thoughts—because I could work those out already.

Did you know, John?

Did you hear me?

I could hear you.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Black. White. Purple. The algae softened his landing on his side and then on his back, but it still hurt.

John took a breath in, and out. He'd survived. Checked to see his teeth were all still there. They were.

He opened his eyes. The near-sun was half-eclipsed by the Old Troll-Man. The shards of rock shook, levitated, and slotted themselves back into the Troll-Man's wall.

John rolled onto his back. Had he been wearing his suit, he would've allowed himself a groan of pain. Cortana would've understood. But she wasn't here, and he simply clambered upright, teeth gritted behind his lips.

John re-oriented himself. The major road was to his right. Close enough that he could read the road sign **.** About one kilometre. The spur up to the Old Troll-Man was ahead of him... and so were all his worldly possessions.

He strode around the Old Troll-Man, his soles compressing the purple fungus-grass, and darted between cliff-jumpers. Hoping no-one would pay any—

"Fancy seeing you here!"

John locked his jaw shut again, and turned to face the woman. White-skinned, tough-faced with aggressive eyebrows, damp and straggly hair, and messily pulling on a pair of jeans, Anne Møller, one of his two hosts.

"Hi," John said, not sure what else he could say.

"I— I didn't know you were a swimmer," said another voice. His other host. Kurt Stjernberg, Anne's husband, pale torso wrapped in one towel as he dried his hair with another. Peppy, diffident, stammery, with an enormous smile.

"Well," John said, "I guess I am."

"This is our tradition here," Anne said—although that was obvious from the forest of parked bicycles and Fordlandians in various states of undress. "Swim once in the morning and then once after the fore-afternoon nap."

Twice a Fordlandian day. That was why Martta's appearance had taken John by surprise. He regretted not reading the guidebook pages on Fordlandia.

"Are you taking off back to the house?" Kurt asked. "We're going to have breakfast when we get back. Scrambled eggs and bacon."

"Yeah," John said.

"Sure." Anne pulled on a t-shirt and an oversized jumper, and gave Kurt a messy lump of clothes. He took a second to notice—he was busy staring at John.

John avoided eye contact while he dressed. The stares were something he was used to on _Infinity,_ especially away from S-Town.Sometimes people were starstruck. Sometimes people wanted to shake his hand. Sometimes people wanted his autograph. Usually it was only in his armour, but there was the young marine who'd tried to get him to sign a piece of paper that had turned to mulch in the shower, and the nurse who'd tried to pose for a photo before being told off by Professor Hadid.

 _"He is hot, isn't he?"_ Anne said, suddenly.

John kept his face turned away from Anne and Kurt. It hadn't been anything more than a whisper, but he'd heard it.

 _"He's got a cute face."_ Kurt, in reply.

 _"You're staring at him,"_ said Anne. _"Stop."_

John pulled on his boots, and stood upright—facing exactly away from them—while he waited for Anne and Kurt to finish.

"Why's that thing called the Old Troll-Man?" John asked, as they headed down the hill and crossed onto the main road. John setting a slow (for him) jogging pace, Anne and Kurt coasting on their bicycles, an automatic truck slowing for them at the priority markings.

"The what?" Anne asked.

"The outcropping. Ældre Troldmanden. Troll-man? Old troll-man?"

Kurt laughed. "Old _Wizard,"_ he said. "Troldmand is Danish, it means wizard, magician, sorcerer."

Old Wizard. Cortana could've told him that.

"How long's it been here?"

"As long as humans have been here," said Anne. "Probably longer. There's legends about it."

"Legends? Humans have only been here—"

"That doesn't stop people telling stories," Kurt said. "People tell stories all the time. Even if it's just to their kids. The story goes, the Near-Sun and the Far-Sun are inhabited by wizards, and every time they come into alignment, they hold a conclave. But _this_ Wizard—the old Wizard—is older than any of the others. The Old Wizard came from the Moon, and was cast out by the Conclave."

John looked behind him.

The Old Wizard stood there. Immovable. But, he almost felt, _watching_ him. Regarding him.

He had been inside. And now he was sure, the Wizard knew who he was.

"It's a nice story," he said.

"Yeah," said Anne. "Now. Breakfast."

  
  


* * *

  
  


The light on the radio went green as the static's grain widened and faded into silence.

Professor Hadid stopped moving the dial. Pushed the red button marked "TALK," and did as it said.

"Aleph Zero, Aleph Zero, Aleph Zero, this is Aleph Four. Over."

Hadid looked at the clock on the wall. Counted off ten seconds of silence, and pushed the button again.

"Aleph Zero, Aleph Zero, Aleph Zero, this is Aleph Four. Over."

She began counting again. Every tick of the second hand—

 _"Aleph Four, this is Aleph Zero. Set Channel Four-Twenty-Nine Seven-Two,"_ said the box, _"and enable scrambler. Over."_

Two attempts to hail wasn't too bad. Hadid set the dimension dials. Four to position twenty-nine. Seven to two. All others disabled. Then she held down the yellow toggle until the light came on, undocked the handset, and held it to her ear.

"Aleph Zero, this is Aleph Four, please confirm your receipt."

 _"Confirmed,"_ came the voice of Captain Lasky from the speaker. _"How are things, Professor?"_

"Things are things," said Hadid, "it is what it is. We're still here."

_"And the Chief?"_

"John seems to be adjusting."

 _"Not taken off his clothes and walked into the sea at the crack of dawn?"_ askedLasky, and Hadid could sense a smirk creeping in.

"No," she replied. "He jumped."

_"He WHAT—"_

"He went swimming," said Hadid. "He's fine."

 _"Damn, Gudrun,"_ Lasky snapped. _"Do you want to give me a heart attack?"_

"Maybe I want to check it's still working," said Hadid, and now it was her turn to hide her smirk behind the supraluminal multiplex. "Anyway. How's life on the Navy's crowning glory?"

 _"Not bad."_ Lasky sighed—and now Hadid could practically see the dark circles under his eyes. _"We've refuelled, the Engineers have built us an attachment that allows us to collect hydrogen from gas giants without having to send out tankers. And we don't have to fold it up for Slipspace. So our energy crisis is resolved, for now."_

"An attachment?" Hadid was struggling to picture this in her head. "Like a... crane? An arm?"

 _"It's like a straw,"_ said Lasky. _"Or a proboscis. I'll send over a photo in the next data blast."_

"Please."

_"Aside from that, we've only had to make one escape jump so far, so our strategy's still holding up. The last time we did, we only saw one Guardian, but it had a flotilla with it, which makes me think they're following her through Slipspace."_

"Which means the Guardians are capable of bringing along their friends," said Hadid. "Great." She looked out of the skylight, and momentarily imagined a hole in reality appearing and Cortana arriving, imperious, terrible, her flotilla burning Fordlandia to the mantle within minutes.

_"Has Dr. Halsey been causing trouble?"_

"The cell's more comfortable than what she's used to," said Hadid. "She had better not get used to it."

_"Do you think she's right?"_

Hadid groaned. The third time Tom had asked her this question, and she still wasn't ready to say yes, or present her own answer.

"Maybe? I don't know _what_ to think of what she says any more. It makes sense, but she's not exactly a neutral party in this."

_"None of us are neutral parties any more, Gudrun."_

"I mean, she might be right. But who can tell the difference any more? She's got a history, and she's not famous for her good intentions."

 _"True."_ Lasky's sigh produced miniature fireworks in the speakers.

"How are you, Tom?"

 _"Alive,"_ replied the Captain, after a good five seconds of radio silence. _"Been trying to sleep. Failing, mostly. I hate starships sometimes."_

"Anything I can do to help?"

 _"Stay alive,"_ said Lasky. _"Be there when we get back. And make sure he is, too."_

"Inshallah," Hadid said—but instinctively averted her face from the box, as if Lasky could see her through the microphone. "Any news from Earth?"

Actual silence that time. Enough to get the point across.

"I know it's been tough, Tom."

(Understatement. Hadid wasn't sure of the details, but she knew Lasky had recently got back in touch with one of his ex partners on Earth. Last July, they'd landed in Sydney for shore leave, and Lasky had been collected from the spaceport with a warm embrace from a startlingly beautiful man. She'd later learned that the mystery man, Tunde, was an architect, and that they'd broken off amicably while _Infinity_ was still undergoing space trials. And then they'd un-broken... and now, Earth was out of contact, and almost certainly burning under repeating waves of blitzkrieg from Cortana and her flotilla.)

"Do you have anyone to talk to?" Hadid asked, breaking another long pause.

 _"I'll be fine, Gudrun,"_ said Lasky. _"Sarah's very patient with me."_

"I don't think she's got much choice."

_"Me neither. Anyway. Anything else?"_

"Nothing from me. I'll hail you if anything happens." Hadid reached for the button, then had second thoughts. "Do you have anything else?"

 _"Yes. Um."_ A pause. _"Is there anyone in the room with you?"_ Lasky asked.

"No," said Hadid, but then— "hold on, let me check." She went to the door, and locked it. "OK. Go."

 _"Our guests who we picked up at the AS-81 shipyard. Anne Møller and Kurt Stjernberg,"_ Lasky said, his words dammed by hesitation, and Gudrun could sense his cheeks turning pink on the other side. _"Is it just me, or is there something a little... off about them?"_

"As in...?" asked Hadid, although she immediately knew what he meant.

_"As in, the first time I met Mr Stjernberg in the conference room to debrief him, he took one look at me and said 'god, you're handsome. But you're shorter than I expected for a captain.'"_

"OK," conceded Hadid, "that is a bit forward."

_"And you've heard about Master Sergeant Stacker?"_

"About him and Anne in the toilets in _The Full Moon_ ," the Professor snorted. "Everyone and their dog heard about that, Tom. I swear that man can't keep it in his pants."

_"I'm just saying. For a married couple, they don't seem to show that much interest in each other."_

"Oh, believe me," said Hadid, "if you'd been trying to sleep in the room next door to them... you'd know."

_"Oh."_

"Three _hours_ ," Hadid said.

_"Three?"_

"Three whole hours," she repeated, "non stop."

 _"Wow,"_ said Lasky. _"Maybe it's a Fordlandia thing? Or, like, a culturally Scandinavian thing...?"_

"I don't know. I've been here twenty-four hours and no-one's come onto me. I think it's just them."

_"Maybe I resent them for having a sex life."_

"A sex life," Hadid snorted. "I wish I had one of those."

_"I had one until nine months ago."_

"Tell me about it," said Hadid.

 _"I'd rather not,"_ said Lasky. After the gales of laughter had subsided, he cleared his throat, and made a deep yawning sound. _"Right. I have a jump sequence to sign off and I need some damn sleep."_

"OK," said Hadid. "Take care, Tom. Tell me how you're doing."

_"I will, thanks for the thought. I'll speak to you in twelve hours. Tschüss!"_

"Sehr gut!" she smiled. "I'm impressed. Bye! Aleph Four, out."

The scrambler disengaged, and Gudrun Hadid turned the machine off.

She looked at the skylight again. Within one Fordlandian week—three days, just over six Earth days— _Infinity_ would be back.

A week is a long time.

And at least they had the Chief. Hadid _hoped_ Cortana didn't want to kill him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When the Master Chief woke again, the time was a little before a quarter past thirty-eight. Both suns were out of sight, but the Near-Sun's warm glow was still clinging to the horizon—just about.

Downstairs, Anne and Kurt were admiring each other as they stood before a large mirror in the living room, adjusting their appearances. She wore a sweater and a long skirt with a glittering starfield pattern; she held a camera, and was taking dozens of shots of Kurt, who wore a blue shirt that looked too small for him in every dimension (but maybe that was intentional—his biceps looked rounder when constricted by fabric.)

"We're going to go to a bar," Anne said. "It's just in town. Not far."

"It seems a bit early?" Hadid said, uninvited, poking her head into the living room. "And I thought today was an En-day."

"It is. And?" Anne asked.

"We did just get back from almost certain death," said Kurt. "And this is our first time home in fifteen months."

"Well," said Hadid, "I can't stop you. I don't suppose you have a job to go to."

"It's about time we got a chance to enjoy ourselves," Anne said to Kurt. "Drink something other than shipyard ale."

Kurt chuckled, and kissed his wife on the lips. A kiss that stuck like misapplied glue.

John glanced at Hadid. She gave him a knowing glance, and returned to the other room.

"Are you coming, John?" asked Anne.

The Master Chief blinked, and shut his jaw. "Yes," he said, and immediately added, "but I'm not drinking."

He counted the colour and the order of all the houses he'd run past this morning, as he followed his hosts back up Regnebuegåde. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. Red. Orange. White. Grey. Gold. A right turn. He'd remembered the sequence exactly from this morning.

"We're lucky to have a place so close to town," said Anne. "I've missed this place. I want to get very, _very_ drunk. Completely fucked up."

"The week is young," said Kurt. "I want to take it slowly."

"You _never_ take it slowly. You'll be on all fours the moment a cute soldier type offers you a shot glass, and you know it."

"OK, maybe," Kurt smirked.

John trailed them by a couple of metres. Not joining the conversation, but listening.

"So, which one are we going to?"

"I like the sound of Bass Box," Anne said. "The happy hour goes on forever."

"Not right now, though?" Kurt seemed unimpressed. "Better to wait until it's filled up. It's not the place to go when you're sober."

"Maybe." Anne looked at her husband. "Hogarth's?"

"Hogarth's," he agreed.

They crossed the town square, past the library and the town hall, and towards a plaza of glimmering lights. The stores on the perimeter were emptying. Afternoon-shift store workers leaving, mounting their bikes, and pushing away. Evening-shift workers arriving, locking up, adjusting their uniforms.

And all the while, crowds were gathering around the centre of the plaza, a hexagonal building with a different frontage on each side. A restaurant. A cinema. A bar, _Hogarth's Place_. A frosted, blacked-out window with lights shining from behind, _The Bass Box—Woofer Club_.

This seemed to be where most people were going. From all directions, John heard the freewheels of approaching bicycles, the hiss and squeal of brakes, the _clop_ of shoes as the people (all young, clean-cut, elegantly dressed) dismounted with a single movement and placed their machines with the others.

John had been inside bars before. That didn't mean he understood them. Lord Hood and Sergeant Johnson had insisted on taking him to _Sandra's_ on Cairo Base—in the end, Hood had drunk a pint of beer, Johnson had drunk three, and John had sat in the corner and sipped water before leaving after forty minutes. And the next morning, the Covenant had arrived at Earth, apparently by accident.

 _Hogarth's Place_ felt like a different beast. Tables and chairs made of heavy, knotted wood. Glasses made of actual glass. And a much younger clientele, without no camouflage gear or rank epaulettes in sight.

"Water?" Kurt asked, as they found a table by the window.

John nodded.

"Give me the hard stuff," Anne told her husband. "Scotch."

John scanned the room as Kurt disappeared towards the bar. Three emergency exits, four if he counted the window which he should be able to break by throwing a chair at it, or barging through. (His left shoulder still smarted from this morning, and the Old Wizard. He'd not told anyone else about that.)

The other patrons all seemed relaxed. Laughing, keeping their eyes within their groups. A few solo drinkers at the bar, some striking up conversation with each other.

This felt unusual. That time on Cairo Station, John couldn't move without wary glances from people around him; maybe it was his skin, his height, or maybe people recognised him. Here, people seemed interested in everything _but_ him.

"Water, for you," said Kurt, suddenly present at his side again. "And for you," he said to Anne, "and for me, not Scotch but... Lille Gadegård."

"And _how much_ was this?" Anne demanded.

"Fewer than five hundred. Not enough for us to be out on the street," said Kurt. "Keep your hair on."

"You can talk."

"What I do with my bald patch is my own business," Kurt smirked.

Anne raised her shot glass. "Cheers."

"Cheers!"

John took a few seconds to clock what he was being asked to do.

"Cheers," he said, raising his glass of water, and pushing it uncomfortably hard into Anne's and Kurt's. A few drops of very expensive spirit spilled over the lip of Anne's dram. Lesson learned.

"So," said Anne, "here we are. At last."

"Here we are," Kurt agreed, after a short pause. A nod, and a smile.

John said nothing. _Here we are_ —a statement of fact, a tautology. There was nothing _to_ say. He was not one to waste his breath. There had been too many times when his life had depended on it.

At that moment, the light fittings shook.

John's muscles tensed. His pupils contracted, his pulse spiked as he looked up, and around. Exits. Civilians. No source for the sound...

"Oh, good," said Kurt, peering past John and through the front windows. "The Bloody Buckets have arrived."

The Warthog's engine revved bullishly, as the pilot applied the brakes and swung around in an aggressive powerslide.

Anne sighed. John relaxed—a little—as the Warthog came to a halt at the front of the bar, having knocked over three bicycles and lifted a cobblestone out of the town square.

Four Marines jumped out. Pale skin stretched over thuggish faces, camouflage t-shirts stretched over biceps with comical proportions. One had a tattoo that looked like a velociraptor on his neck—he led the other three into _Hogarth's Place_ , kicking the door open with enough force to make the light fittings shake again.

The Bloody Buckets they were not. The Master Chief clenched his teeth behind his lips as the four swaggered for the bar. The profile of the conversation in the room changed. Some fell silent, observing the new arrivals; some spoke louder, hoping to fill the vacuum with passive disdain.

"I'm sure no-one's compensating for anything," said a middle-aged woman from the next table. Another woman, sat next to her, tutted and rolled her eyes.

"Do they come here often?" John asked Anne and Kurt.

"I've not seen them here before," Kurt replied.

"It's what happens when you fill up the defenders of Earth with alcoholic boneheads." Anne groaned, and stood. "One sec."

She marched over to the bar, and positioned herself directly between the pilot and the bar.

"Four light beers— _whoa,_ lady," he said, recoiling a little. "You got a problem?"

"Your parking isn't great. Fix it," Anne growled.

"Hey," said another of the four men, with a shock of red hair and a burning skull tattooed on his arm. "No-one died."

"I know a few cobblestones who'd disagree with that. And put those bikes back, too, while you're at it."

"And who are you?" The pilot's incredulousness had faded. He was now leaning forward, nose around a centimetre from Anne's. "Not even a 'thank you for your service'?"

"You could be the King of Sweden for all I care," Anne retorted. "You're guests here. Start acting like it."

"Lady," said the pilot, as his friends formed into a V behind him, "I don't know who you think you are, but I'm Lance Corporal Brock C. Bolton III, UNSC Marine Corps, and I'm stationed here to keep you and your family safe. Now, I'll park where the hell I—"

Lance Corporal Bolton jolted about as a hand appeared on his right shoulder. Let out a small _yelp_.

"Is something wrong, Marine?"

He snapped around, staggered backwards against the bar, and then came to, and straightened up.

"And who are _you,_ Longshanks, when you haven't got a stick up your ass?"

"Who do you think?"

The red-haired man (name-patch O'Brien) recoiled a little.

"Sir—"

"Some old man," Bolton said, white teeth showing through a cocksure smile as he rolled his shoulders, "who needs teaching a little respect—"

 _"Sir,"_ said O'Brien. "Look."

John held his hand up. Partly to de-escalate. Partly to show Lance Corporal Bolton his forearm.

Bolton's mouth fell slightly open as he saw the scars. Pale, barely visible, but still there from the surgical table all those years ago.

"You're a Spartan?" O'Brien said. Star-struck disbelief.

Anne watched on, a wicked smirk crawling onto her mouth.

"Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-117." He placed his hand back at his side. Cocked his head. "Is there a problem, Marine?"

The three shocktroopers behind him immediately snapped to attention, saluting so fast they nearly cracked their skulls open.

"Sir," said Lance Corporal Bolton, springing into his own salute like a child's toy, "no, sir."

"Good." The Master Chief nodded.

"Permission to speak freely, sir," said O'Brien.

"You don't need to ask me," replied the Chief, sounding like Captain Lasky. "I'm off duty."

"Sir, it is _such_ an honour to meet you," he gushed, his legs bent a little, as if he was trying to bow or curtsey. "Welcome to Fordlandia."

"Thank you," the Master Chief said, not sure whether there was any appropriate way to reply to that.

"What are you doing here?" asked Bolton. "What's a Spartan doing on Fordlandia?"

"That's classified," the Chief replied, truthfully. And he wasn't even sure himself.

" _Have_ to be mysterious," said Bolton. "Master Chief. I'm Lance Corporal Brock C. Bolton III, and my colleagues... Private Pedro Coelho, Jr., Private Clive O'Brien, Private Morris Morrissey. We're stationed down at Aalborg Haven. I'd be _honoured_ to buy you a drink."

"I'm fine," John said, wishing he hadn't identified himself now. Although no-one else seemed to be taking an interest in him, these four Marines now seemed desperate to be his friend.

Anne had returned to her seat, and was smirking.

"I _insist._ " Lance Corporal Brock C. Bolton III pointed his bent nose back at the bar. "What are you drinking?"

The Master Chief did not answer.

"Five light beers, and a shot of vodka," said Lance Corporal Bolton, after giving up on waiting for an answer.

John looked through the window. A young woman who'd just left _The Bass Box_ was inspecting her bicycle, cast from its parking place and with the front wheel buckled from the impact with the Warthog. She looked through the window of _Hogarth's Place._ Noticed the four Marines. Glared.

"For you," Lance Corporal Bolton said, handing the Master Chief a brown bottle. _NUB-LITE_.

"I said I was fine," said the Master Chief.

"Come _on_ ," said Private Morrissey. "Never say no to beer."

The Master Chief took a swig from the bottle, and resisted the instinct to spit it out. It tasted of nothing, carbonated and distilled.

"Whoa." Private O'Brien wanted to laugh, but looked concerned. "Is something wrong, sir?"

"It's disgusting," replied John.

That set them all off. The laughter was a sudden gale, the four Marines howling. John didn't say anything. He was still trying to swallow away the bland-tasting liquid. Jaw clenched, as always.

"Not a beer person, MC?" Lance Corporal Bolton slapped the Chief's shoulder—or would have, if he hadn't been a head and a half taller. It ended up striking his elbow. John remained still, but inside his skin, he recoiled as if he'd been struck with a plasma sword.

"Come _on_." That was Anne, suddenly by his side. "You can't feed him that rubbish and claim it's beer."

"Just 'cause _you_ can't hold it..." Lance Corporal Bolton began, but was silenced as Anne snatched the bottle from John's hand, and swallowed the remaining contents in one.

Private Morrissey whistled. "Damn."

"Which toilet cistern did that come from?" asked Anne, before letting out a hearty burp. "As I was saying. At least give him some actual alcohol." In her other hand, a dram of the same whiskey that she and Kurt had been drinking.

John smelled it. Shook his head. "No thanks," he said.

"Come _on_ ," said Private Coelho. "It'll loosen you up, man."

John didn't want to loosen up. He swallowed the contents of the glass in a single gulp anyway, and felt like his gullet was on fire. For some reason, Anne, Corporal Bolton, and Privates Coelho and Morrissey applauded and cheered.

The Master Chief tried smiling, but knew it looked wrong.

"I want some," said Bolton. Once he had his own dram, he managed it in three stages, stopping to hoot out breath and make loud howling noises. If anyone couldn't hold their drink, it was clearly Lance Corporal Bolton.

"I think we should go Bass Box," said Morrissey, after three more rounds of whiskey, which John had declined. He'd felt the effects of the one shot enough: his motor control felt slower. Floaty. He didn't like it.

"Sounds good," said Bolton, and Anne nodded in agreement.

John plodded behind them across the town square, grateful for the brief respite and the wind.

The floor of the _Bass Box_ 's entrance hall was dimly lit in blue. The floor seemed to vibrate, in slow, aggressive pulses. Like being on a starship under attack.

"Six," said Kurt, handing his credit chit through the hatch to the doorkeeper, a stout, dark-skinned person with their hair swept to the right. They handed back six small tokens. "For your first drink," Kurt said to John, handing one of the tokens to him.

"This floor is the dancefloor," said the doorkeeper. "Downstairs is the darkroom and play area if you're looking for some fun. Always ask permission before you touch, no means _no_ ," they said, glaring daggers at the four Marines. "If you feel unsafe, speak to staff, they're all wearing the glowing orange armbands."

As the group moved towards the door, and the doorkeeper pressed the button to unlock it, John asked: "play area?"

"If you want to have sex," said the doorkeeper, unimpressed.

John started. The door slid apart, and the group stepped forward into the main room of _The Bass Box._

Bright, piercing flashes of blue strobe lighting. The heavy _thrum_ of a deep drums, in a slow, impetuous beat.

Anne immediately threw herself towards a glowing floor surface, and a throng of people dancing—no co-ordination, no order, just throwing themselves around in time to the drums.

**BOOM. BOOM.**

John's head felt sore. The floor shook with every beat. The music consumed and masked _everything_.

**BOOM. BOOM.**

He could see Lance Corporal Bolton, shouting something at Kurt—not that he could hear anything. Privates O'Brien and Coelho rolling up the arms of their t-shirts, baring their biceps.

**BOOM. BOOM.**

Two women and a man pushing past him, rushing towards the stairwell. A lit arrow pointing downwards. **THE FUN ZONE.**

And at that moment, the ceiling exploded.

John jumped, and coiled himself into a defensive position—on one knee, head braced under his hands.

Debris—golden confetti—fell from the ceiling. The beats were punctuated by flurries of cheers and whooping.

**BOOM. BOOM.**

No. _No._

John turned around, and slammed the green **EXIT** button next to the door—

Emerged into the entrance hall—

waited for the door to close, and mute the sound behind—

and breathed.

"You OK?" asked the doorkeeper. A hint of concern in their voice.

The Master Chief closed his eyes, and focused on breathing. Looked down. Realised his hands were shaking.

"Oh no. Did something happen?" The doorkeeper stood up from their seat, and made for the door leading to the entrance hall—

"I'm fine," said John, climbing the stairs to the exit. "Thank you."

It was a lie, of course. But it was enough to let him escape.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Professor Gudrun Hadid was never, ever in a hurry.

This was a matter of principle for her. She disliked being late, but she disliked being unprepared even more. Better to relax, get a coffee, and turn up ready, than to hurry and realise you'd forgotten something and were in a shitty mood because you hadn't had coffee.

Military discipline was supposed to drill lateness out of people. That hadn't lasted. The forty-nine minute cadence of _Infinity's_ sojourns into normal space had sent the most rigorous schedules into meltdown. Soldiers shuffled along the corridors in a bleary daze; engineers rode bicycles and scooters from one end of the ship to the other, weaving, messily slurping coffee, not bothering to clean it up. Her 'morning' briefing with the Captain was usually in Lasky's idea of an evening, and he looked like shit—stubble, hair greying and askew, skin drained of colour, eyes sullen.

So it was always nice when, every two days, Hadid had her appointments with the exception to the rule.

"I could set my clock by you," Hadid told the Master Chief. "That's what we like."

The Master Chief didn't reply. He placed the recorder onto the table and let it roll to the centre.

"How have you been doing?" asked Hadid. "Have you been playing much?"

He didn't answer that.

"How often? Once a day?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I see."

This was what talking to the Master Chief was like for Gudrun Hadid. You had to ask him very specific questions, or he would answer evasively. (She'd checked with Frederic and Kelly and Linda, who said it had been like that for them too. Since the Cryptum. Since her. At least he wasn't at the stage of answering in riddles yet.)

"What about the tunes? Have you tried playing anything new?"

No response to that. She took it as a negative.

This was how it normally went. It wasn't anything new to Professor Hadid. She'd been a mental health professional for four decades, and John was nowhere near her toughest patient. If nothing else, it was nice to have these one-on-ones with him: aside from making the Captain happy, it felt like going back to her day job. Practicing medicine rather than managing teams of other doctors, and working out where they were going to get their next resupply of essential medicines.

"This one is called The Blue Danube," Hadid said, showing John the datapad with the sheet music. "You might've heard it before."

The Master Chief read it. The staves, the notes, the signature markings.

"Do you want to give it a try?" asked Hadid.

Wordlessly, the Master Chief placed the recorder to his lips. Hadid smiled, and commenced the click track and the musical accompaniment.

John's recorder playing was good, if a little stiff. No note ever lasted longer than it had to. His breath control and fingering was perfect. Too perfect, like listening to a MIDI file. Maybe it was because he was new at this; maybe it was because he had trouble doing anything beyond what he'd been ordered to.

"How did that feel?" asked Hadid, after he was done. "Did you enjoy that?"

The Master Chief nodded. Wordless. Mouth shut tight, expressionless.

"Had you heard it before?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied to that, nodding again.

"Do you remember when?"

The Master Chief inhaled through his teeth. Searching his memory.

"It was a long time ago, ma'am."

"How long?"

"I don't remember, ma'am."

"That's fine," said Hadid. "Can you remember _where_ you heard it?"

"Cortana," said John. "It was Cortana."

 _Ach, scheiße_ —Hadid hadn't accounted for this.

"We were docking on Cairo Station," the Master Chief continued. "In a Pelican. We were on automatic, in a holding pattern waiting for clearance to enter."

As the ships waltzed into the space station. Funny.

"I think it was her idea of a joke," said John.

"It does sound funny," said Hadid, smiling.

A snort. A slight upward curl in the Master Chief's lips.

It took Hadid a few moments to clock that he was smirking. Not looking at her, not at the sheet music, not at the recorder on the table. Not caring about that. Lost in the memory—a good one.

The Master Chief, with his guard down, smiling. Hadid wondered if he was like this inside his armour.

"It sounds like she's a funny person," she said.

The Master Chief inhaled. Re-set his mouth, looked upwards, at Hadid—through Hadid.

"She was," he replied.

"I'm sorry," said the Professor.

"For what?"

But John knew. Not that Hadid could have done anything about it, of course. But it still hurt.

"It's alright to miss her," she said. "And it's alright to remember the good times you had with her."

The Master Chief grimaced. Sighed. Looked down at the recorder—avoiding eye contact.

"Yes, ma'am."

  
  


* * *

  
  


The Master Chief was sure he could still hear his ears ringing with music from _The Bass Box_. Tonedeaf drum beats. The sound of that balloon bursting, with a _pop_ like an improvised explosive device, or a gun. A pressing need to get out.

He crossed the town square on foot. A small, yellow drone was buzzing around the Warthog, clamping its wheels in place. A plastic envelope had been stuck to its windscreen. **PARKING PENALTY NOTICE.**

John stepped into the outdoor equipment store. Ten minutes later, he left with a backpack filled with gear: a wetsuit, a flashlight, a lantern, an oxygen backpack with a rebreather, an underwater camera, a towel, a small pickaxe.

In the corner of his eye, he saw four figures emerging from _The Bass Box._ Camouflage gear. A loud torrent of expletives as they saw the wheel clamps on the Warthog. Corporal Bolton kicked one of the clamps, and howled in pain.

John set the Old Wizard in his sights, and ran.

He knew which signs to follow now. John's eyesight was nowhere near as good as it had been, but there were overhead lights that sensed his presence and lit up as he approached. (They hadn't had that on Reach, where outside the cities, even a dirt track was a luxury.)

The sign again. **⌘** **ÆLDRE TROLDMANDEN 1300m.** **DANGER! MANUAL VEHICLES** **.** At least that wouldn't include the Warthog the four Marines from the base had been driving.

John reached the clifftop diving spot within fifteen minutes. Stripped out of his clothes, as he had before, folded them, placed them in a stack under the bench.

The wetsuit was a little small, but John had lost some weight in the last few months. It fit him, just about—but his shoulder smarted as he pushed it into the sleeve. A shining red bruise was spreading across his upper arm. Hopefully ramming his way through the outer wall wouldn't be necessary again.

He removed the camera from its packaging, turned the power crank for a minute, and pressed record.

"Time, forty-one seventeen and twenty seconds," he said. "This is Sierra One One Seven, of _UNSC Infinity_ , on Fordlandia, at Ældre Troldmanden. Earlier today I discovered an artificial structure in the centre of this landmark," and at this point John swung the camera around, and up, to take in all of the Old Wizard. "A cave system accessible from the beach has a concealed exit that I was able to activate. The design appeared Forerunner and led to a network of tunnels, some of which seemed to exit into a hidden doorway on the side of the landmark. I will attempt to locate the same entrance now and record what I see inside."

He secured the camera to his chest, and the flashlight to his forehead. Lit the lantern first, and tossed it before him, then bent, and dived.

The wall of water grew to fill the world, black, shimmering in starlight. A roar of air. John's ears filled with the ocean. A concussive **BOOM—**

He surfaced within five seconds this time. His swim to the shore was faster too, not impeded by cliques of chattering locals.

The Master Chief retrieved the lantern, and re-traced his steps. Finding the gap in the rocks where shadows held back the leaking from the orange pillar-lights.

He followed the path again. Orange light. Orange light. Orange light. Orange light. Orange light. A corkscrew ascent. Orange light, orange light, orange light... and an exit onto a cable-stayed wooden bridge.

 _That's not right,_ the Master Chief thought. He must've gone past it.

He made an about turn, and re-traced his steps. Down the corkscrew. Down, and to the left. Down, and to the left. Orange light, orange light, orange light... and the crashing of waves.

He must've missed something. The green light had been off to his left, between two of the orange lights.

The Master Chief started from the beach again, and walked up the corkscrew, counting the orange lights. Eighty-nine. Counted back down. Eighty-nine.

He'd lost track of distance in the morning. And two more trips up and down the corkscrew didn't help.

John stood on the beach and thought. Tried to list the things that had changed since he'd last been here.

It was dark now, and would be for the next ten hours. Maybe the tunnel network was light-activated? It would have to be activated by light shining on the Wizard, because there was no light (except from the beacons) inside the tunnels.

Motion-activated? There were no people in the corkscrew, except him. Maybe the entrance only revealed itself when there was more than one person in the cave system.

Or...

John looked to the stars, at a loss for what to do. He didn't have long on Fordlandia. Leaving without getting to the bottom of this would be a disappointment—he may as well have not come here, and remained on Infinity, helping to calculate the seven-stage jumps...

_Seven..._

Hmm. The Master Chief looked back into the cave system. It was a wild guess, but... he remembered from somewhere (he forgot _exactly_ where) that the Forerunner counted in base seven.

It probably wouldn't lead to anything, but... he began counting multiples of seven. Beacon number seven. Beacon number fourteen. Number twenty-one. Twenty-eight. Thirty-five. Forty-two...

John blinked. Beacon number forty-nine looked, at first glance, like it was faulty, the light set into the wall flickering, in a death rattle.

But as he approached, and made sure the camera was recording, he saw the shape. A trapezium with sharp edges. A circle with an inner circle, and a line connecting inner and outer.

A glyph.

 _RECLAIMER_ , in red.

Beacon number forty-nine (or 100, in base seven) wasn't a beacon. It was the entrance.

"This door design appears to be artificial," he said into the camera's microphone. "The Forerunner symbol for Reclaimer. It's locked."

He checked himself. Was he sure? The Master Chief had been in enough Forerunner structures to know. Blue meant unlocked, green meant opening, red meant closed. Whether that was the result of them reading his mind and matching up the colour to culturally acceptable signifiers, he didn't know; maybe it was just good luck. Maybe the Forerunner had taught humanity that blue was neutral, green was good, and red was bad, and it was a corrupted racial memory in the society he'd grown up in. John didn't know.

"It wasn't locked this morning," said John, for the recording.

He was starting to feel cold. The wind was rising in his ears. And, John realised, he hadn't checked...

"Cortana," he said, "when does the tide come in, and does it come in high enough to flood this cave system?"

Silence. Maybe his mic was malfunctioning.

"Cortana? Do you read—"

A voice, reflected from the tunnel walls, amplified by an accident of geometry.

But his own voice. Not Cortana's.

The crashing of waves in the distance.

"You can't," the Master Chief said, to Cortana. "Of course you can't."

Cortana, by her absence, said nothing.

Another rush of noise from below. Rumbling, leaking, waves flooding the tunnel network.

The tide? A storm surge? John didn't know. But he could smell the salt.

"What happened, Cortana?" John didn't care now—no-one else would hear him.

A rush of cold wind, and a torrent of water behind him.

"What changed?"

A prickling at the back of his head. And in his periphery, a flash of red to blue.

_Follow the blue._

John leapt for the light as it changed again, to green.

The door opened.

Spray showered his face. He dived, landed on his front, the camera box knocking the air out of his lungs.

The door closed.

John coughed, and rolled onto his back. Looked down. The wetsuit was spattered with brine. The camera had disintegrated, shattered into hundreds of pieces of plastic—and he was sure there was now another bruise on his chest.

He tasted salt water, cold and hot. His own saliva. The condensed wind he had knocked out of his own lungs.

Above, a blazing sun. The sound of approaching ramjet engines, air through a drainpipe.

John found his hands, checked his palms and fingertips were still there. Formed a pyramid with them, and pressed himself upright.

His fingernails sunk into damp sand. The terrain re-formed itself around him.

A black spot on the horizon. The white point at its crest brightening by the second.

_"John!"_

John looked behind him, and jumped.

His mother, in a simple floral dress, stood on a small dune, eyes peering through her binoculars at the approaching dot.

The air above them roared. The dropship sailed overhead, bound for the landing strip at the nearby base—

_"John!"_

The Master Chief staggered backwards, on to his feet. The imprint he had made when landing was a perfect obsidian shadow, hard, solid, and now it dissolved into a perfect human-shaped shadow of dry sand.

_"John!"_

The next wave washed any trace of it away. The Chief checked his chest—the innards of the camera were still there, exposed to the elements, ruined.

_"John!"_

The Chief spun about. Another Pelican roared overhead. Two Albatrosses. A civilian jank.

The waves rose higher, higher—

John closed his eyes—

_"John!"_

A concussive **BOOM—**

  
  


* * *

  
  


Silence.

The wave had washed at least ten metres up the beach.

The Master Chief hadn't felt anything. It had passed over him, through him, beyond him—as if he wasn't there. As if the water wasn't there.

He walked up the beach, his feet squelching in the sand.

_"John!"_

But his mother wasn't talking. Stood on the crest of the dune. Binoculars clutched to her eyes, lips tight shut. Brightly coloured scarf billowing, her figure otherwise frozen.

_"John!"_

The Master Chief snapped around. His figure sprung into a stance for hand-to-hand combat.

A plump, pale-skinned woman. Her hair was damp, she was naked, and her feet had sprung into a defensive stance to match his own.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Martta, the swimmer he had met on the cliff top that morning.

"What are _you_ doing here?" John asked, but he stood back, and held his hands aloft to indicate he wasn't a threat.

Martta stood up straight. Looked John straight in the eye.

"I am the monitor of this Installation," she said, plainly. "Now, John—Reclaimer—I'll ask you again. What are you doing here?"

John scanned his surroundings, as the stars went out, the sky dissolved around him, and the sand melted away.

"Where is _here?_ " asked he, as 'here' ceased to be.


	3. Ask Me No Questions...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stand by, folks, this is where it gets weird.

"You still haven't told me, Reclaimer, who you are."

They were heading back down the hill. Martta—the Monitor—had offered John a lift on her bicycle; he had declined, and was jogging alongside, hair still damp from the water, wetsuit drying as it flapped around on his backpack.

"You haven't told me who _you_ are."

"I've told you that I'm the Monitor of this Installation. If you must know, I am 139 Fated Bairn, monitor of the Temparium," said the Monitor. "And I've explained how I ended up looking like this."

In short: Martta Johannsbur, a four-year-old daughter of the first wave of colonists, had fallen from the cliff-edge by the Old Wizard sixty years ago. She bled to death on the rocks in about ten minutes. By nightfall, the Wizard's Engineers had saved her body, but her mind was beyond repair. The Monitor, with an empty human body and a need to understand its new neighbours, made best use of the resources available. It annexed Martta's human body, acquired her identity, and carried on with her life.

"Who else knows about you?" the Chief asked. "Who knows what happened?"

"Just you, I think," said the Martta-Monitor. She gave John a glance, before returning her eyes to the road.

For a moment, John wondered about the other John. The one who had been downloaded into a copy of his body, acquired his identity, and carried on with his life. He shivered—but maybe that was the cold.

"What do you know about the Installation?" Martta asked.

"That's classified."

"So you _do_ know something about it?"

"That's classified."

"Who _are_ you?" The Monitor was getting tetchy. "And don't tell me _that's_ classified. I can work it out."

John kept his lips sealed.

"You're obviously military, or ex military, I can tell that from the gear and the size of you," Martta said. "Your neural bridge would suggest UNSC. You're obviously not from Fordlandia, or I would've seen you before. Your accent is currently Euro-American, but I suspect you are not. I can tell from the scars on your forearms that you've been altered or mutated in some way. And you've given me a name that sounds like a cover."

"It's my real name."

"What's your last name, then? Am I supposed to believe your real name is just John?"

John didn't know the answer to that. He wasn't sure he wanted to. He could give his SPARTAN candidate number, of course, but history showed him that would raise even more eyebrows.

"It's just John."

"John Smith? John Doe?"

"Just John," said John. "It's the only name I use. It's the only one that matters."

Martta—the Monitor—didn't ask him again. Presumably she realised it was a lost cause. Or maybe she sussed that he was telling her the truth. It was hard to tell. The Master Chief had been trained in reading body language, and de-escalation, but that didn't mean he was any good at it. And he couldn't tell if a Monitor (a computer? ancilla?) in a human body would behave in the same way as a normal person.

Whatever a _normal person_ was.

"There's no word in your language for what the Installation does," said the Monitor. "None of the words you have seemed to fit exactly, so I made one up. It is a Temparium."

"But what does it _do_?" John didn't have enough information to make sense of the name.

"It's a register that absorbs events. An archive of everything. It collects memories and events, organises them, puts them in a state where they can be retrieved."

"Retrieved by who?" asked the Master Chief.

"Retrieved by whoever comes here," said Martta, "such as you. You're the first visitor I've had in a while. The first Reclaimer in even longer."

"How does it absorb events?"

"There aren't the words in your language to explain it. Events happen, people witness them, they become part of the Temparium." It was hard to tell if Martta's—139 Fated Bairn's—tone was impatient, or apologetic. "It just happens. It doesn't really matter how."

They passed the school again. Forcefield-fence buzzing. It occurred to John that his school would probably be in the Temparium, just as his mom was.

"So, tell me," said 139 Fated Bairn. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing," he replied.

"And yet you came here—"

"I mean, I am literally here to _do nothing_ ," said the Master Chief. "I'm on shore leave. Vacation."

"So you are military," said the Monitor. Suspicious. "You're not carrying an ancilla, are you? An artificial intelligence?"

John avoided eye contact. Did not respond, because the answer was too painful.

"I will find out if you are, John. It's a security breach. The Temparium has failsafes against ancilla intrusions. It could shake itself apart—"

"No," he replied, through gritted teeth.

"Thank you," the Monitor said, relieved, annoyed. "So, what's your name? Your right name?"

"Like I said," said John. "It's just John."

"And you don't have a rank, a rate, a designation...?"

"Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117."

At that, Martta kicked backwards on the pedals of her bike. The coaster brake squealed, and she stood, baffled, in front of the Master Chief.

"You're the Master Chief?"

John nodded. Knowing this was revealing classified information to a Forerunner construct; knowing Martta, or 139 Fated Bairn, would have found out sooner or later anyway. He had already told the four ODSTs in the bar yesterday.

"You don't look as tall as you look in the posters and the vids," she said. "And your face..."

"You didn't see my face on the posters," said John. "You saw my armor."

"Of course," said the Monitor. "Humans are fragile and squishy and vulnerable to infection. Why would they portray you as human?"

John blinked. But he knew she was right. The first he'd heard about the campaign featuring 'the Master Chief, defender of Earth and her colonies' had been when he'd seen a poster in Mombasa. And it could've been anyone behind the armor in the picture. Definitely not him.

"I'm surprised you've heard of me," he told Martta.

"Well, to all intents and purposes, I _am_ human," she replied. "I just happen to be the Monitor of the Installation as well. I'm an ancilla, I can multitask. But I know about human culture, your human affairs. I just happen to be old enough to remember it from first time around, too."

"First time around?"

"Long story," said Martta. "We'll get to the town soon." She re-mounted her bike, and let gravity take its course, as John broke back into a gentle trot.

"I should report this," he said.

"I'd threaten you with death," replied Martta, "but I assume many people have tried that."

They passed the railway station as a freight train rolled through, rails singing and wheels howling as the track curved.

"I'm surprised you're not staying at Aalborg Haven," said the Monitor.

"Would you stay on a Halo installation if you were on vacation?"

"Fair point," Martta said.

"I'm staying with two guests we had on my ship," said John, in answer to her original remark.

"Any plans?"

"No," John replied.

"You can come back," said Martta. "If you want. I'll leave it up to you if you tell anyone else about it, as long as you're not putting my Installation at risk."

John remained silent. If he told Hadid—told Lasky—about that, he couldn't guarantee the Temparium would be unspoiled. If he told Halsey, he could guarantee it _would_ be.

"I have to ask," he said, as they neared the Town Square, deserted: "why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does it exist? What purpose does it serve?"

"You've seen for yourself," said the Monitor. "Reclaimers have fragile memories. The Forerunner, too, and they lived longer. The Temparium is what happened. Nothing more, nothing less."

As had that moment with his mom on the beach.

"Come back tonight," said 139 Fated Bairn, "same time, same place. And Reclaimer—Master Chief—I can show you as much as you want."

With that, Martta turned right, across the Town Square, and glided precisely down one of the cobbled alleys. Presumably towards her house.

The Master Chief blinked. Not quite sure he believed what he had just witnessed.

He strode back down Regnebuegåde, and let himself back into the yellow-bricked house.

"Enjoy your late-night swim?" asked Hadid.

John grimaced. Of _course_ she knew. She would've been keeping an eye on the location of his neural lace.

"Yes, ma'am," said the Master Chief.

"Good," the Professor smiled. "Glad you're enjoying the change of scenery."

John put a foot on the staircase. Stepped upwards.

A sudden, heavy pain in his head, and a weight in his legs.

He took another step. And another—

and fell backwards, as he stepped onto a stair that wasn't there.

His back landed hard on the wooden flooring, his head just missing the skirting board.

"Oh dear," Hadid said, rushing to his side. "You OK?"

"Fine," John lied—and realised that the world around him seemed a little sluggish.

Hadid reached to help him up. Sniffed. She could smell something on his breath. The concern in her eyebrows melted into a frown.

"How much did they give you last night?" she asked. Gentle—as she always was—but clearly pissed.

"A shot of whiskey." And a tiny bit of Nub-Lite, as horrible as it was.

"Easy does it," said the Professor, helping John to right himself. "Any pain?"

John shook his head—although that hurt.

"Is this normal?" he asked Hadid.

"Is what normal?"

"Feeling like I can barely walk after one shot of whiskey?"

"Depends how much you normally drink," Hadid replied.

"Not at all."

"Well, there you have it."

She helped John up the stairs, one by one. Step by step. Slowly. Not really taking the whole of his body weight (not that she could) but helping him keep purchase on the walls and the bannister.

The door to the Stjernbergs' room was closed. So was the door to Hadid's guest room.

The door to John's attic guest room, though, was ajar—not how John had left it.

And on the bed, under a messy tangle of bedsheets and blankets, laid a white-skinned man with a mess of red hair and green eyes.

"OK," Hadid said to herself. Sighing. Tutting.

John blinked.

O'Brien registered who was there—and practically leaped out of the bed as if it was electrified.

 _"Sir,"_ he said, snapping into a stand, in front of the Master Chief and Professor Hadid. As naked as the day he was born, which he had only now realised, reaching frantically for the bedsheet to salvage his modesty. ( _Not_ originally from Fordlandia, then, thought John.)

"Who the hell are you?" demanded Hadid.

"Private First Class Clive O'Brien. Ma'am."

"What are you doing here?"

"Ma'am—"

"Professor," said the Master Chief, holding his hand up to defuse the tension. "He's OK, he probably came with our hosts."

Professor Gudrun Hadid gave a deep, exasperated sigh.

"Get your pants on and get out of here," she snapped.

"Ma'am—" and here O'Brien tightened his grip around the sheet, shielding his crotch— "I think my pants are downstairs. In Anne and Kurt's room."

"So, go downstairs," Hadid told him, "get your pants from Anne and Kurt's room, then go away."

"Yes. Ma'am. Sir."

Hadid waited for O'Brien to scurry away and for his footsteps to retreat downstairs before turning to John and mouthing: _"what just happened?"_

John yawned. Realised it hurt. Remained slack-jawed. Breathing uneven. Dazed.

"Is this what people do?" he asked.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_"They got him drunk."_

Captain Lasky almost spat out his coffee.

"They WHAT?"

_"Well, not very drunk. Just slightly tipsy. Enough to trip up on the stairs. He didn't feel the effects until he got home."_

Tom caught Commander Palmer's eye. Made an accentuated grimace. Her eyes widened—maybe as it clocked to her exactly what Professor Hadid had just said.

 _"He's alright,"_ the Professor continued. _"One very strong shot of whisky and some beer. A little headache, but he'll be fine. His biochemistry hasn't had time to adapt to drinking, things are going to be a bit weird."_

"And here was me, going cold turkey for two weeks," said Lasky.

"I told you it was a lost cause," smirked Palmer.

 _"Apparently a squad of ODSTs from the base at Aalborg Haven were involved,"_ Hadid continued. _"I've contacted the base commander. She's assured me they'll be dealt with."_

"Does Halsey know about this?" Palmer asked.

_"Not yet."_

At this, Palmer whispered to Lasky across the table. "Keep her in the dark until we get back. I want to see her face."

Lasky smirked. Forced. Uneasy.

"He will be OK, though? When we come back?"

 _"He'll be fine,"_ Hadid repeated.

"He'll be fine, Tom," whispered Sarah. In reassurance. Lasky knew that was what was happening—he accepted it.

_"How are things on your end?"_

Lasky blinked. He'd momentarily forgotten that this was a two-way conversation. Or maybe that was his way of putting off delivering the big news:

"Lord Hood has gone missing," he said, the words landing at the bottom of his vocal range. "We've not heard from him or from Osman for eighteen hours. They didn't say they were going out of contact, they just... disappeared."

Lasky took a deep breath when he'd finished. Steadied himself against his desk.

 _"OK. Tom, I don't want you to panic,"_ came Hadid's voice through the box. _"Maybe the scrambler is damaged and they're waiting for an Engineer to repair it. Maybe they've had a power failure on whatever ship or planet they're holed up on—"_

"I know, Gudrun, it's probably nothing, but still. It's... _shit._ " Lasky sat, locked his hands behind his head, and stretched. Stared at the ceiling while talking into the box. "I just don't see how we got here, and I don't see how _I'm_ supposed to be in charge of all this now."

 _"You and me both,"_ said Hadid. _"That reminds me. I need to speak to Doctor Jemison."_

"They're doing a good job in your absence," Lasky replied.

_"I know, but I also regret leaving them in the shit."_

"It's like a baptism of fire, it'll be good for them," interjected Palmer.

"A clean-cut junior with ambition but a lack of leadership experience gets thrown in at the deep end when their boss disappears," said Lasky. "Sounds familiar."

Palmer smirked at that. He heard Hadid issue a filtered snort through the box.

Once the call had ended, Palmer regarded Lasky for longer than he felt comfortable.

"Well?"

"Do you really think the beard's working for you?"

The Captain sighed. He felt his face flush red and stroked it instinctively. Maybe it was getting long in the tooth.

"I haven't had time," he said. "Always something else to do."

"You need to take the time to look after yourself, Tom." Palmer came around the table, pulled up a seat next to Lasky's, and sat. "I miss our running excursions."

"I miss having the energy to do it."

"Tom, you give so much to other people and to trying to run this damn ship that you forget to give yourself the chance to switch off. And we notice. The crew _notices_."

"We're in a crisis," said Lasky. Averting his eyes, staring at the scrambler box on the table. At the time. At his shoes.

"You remind me of the Chief," Palmer said, after a long pause.

Lasky pursed his lips. A polite smile, maybe. A scoff.

"What's up with you and him?" she queried, after a pause. She'd had to think before asking the question.

"In what way?"

"You tell me. You seem very protective of him."

"I'm protective of all my crew," said Lasky, with only a hint of irony and on a down tone of exasperation. "He's my crew, he's very valuable, he is a war hero. I want to protect him."

"He's my crew too," Sarah reminded the Captain. "Let me rephrase. You take an unusually hands-on approach with the Master Chief's welfare and health. What's the personal interest?"

"It's not an old man's fantasies, if that's what you're asking."

"Tom, you're 47, you're not old." Palmer leaned forward. A smile cracking on her face. Then pulling back as Lasky's face went red again, and she realised she was heading into uncomfortable territory. "But I wasn't thinking of that."

"You know I've known him since I was a kid at Corbulo? Since we were _both_ kids?"

"Only vaguely," said Palmer. "You never did tell me the details."

Lasky sighed. "I can tell you if you like," he said.

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"It's fine. I already... when Anne and Kurt asked if I'd do a piece to camera—"

"Oh." Palmer seemed surprised. "They asked you, too?"

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Doctor Hallam?"

Halsey took a few seconds to realise they were talking to her.

"Come," she barked, not looking up from the desk.

The door to Custody Suite 4 opened. "You have a visitor," said the duty officer.

"Send them in," replied Halsey, without even looking up. She wasn't going to entertain the officer's indignance with a glance. Nor even a 'please' or 'thank you.'

"How are we?" Professor Hadid asked, once the cell door had been closed behind her.

"I've got nothing new, if that's what you came here to ask."

"That is not what I asked, Catherine. I asked how you were."

"Fine. _Fine,"_ she said, turning to face Hadid for the first time, tapping her hand impatiently on the table. "That's how I am. I'm fine."

"Just fine?"

"Well, I can't be anything else, can I? I can't leave. I can't even use my own name."

"You asked to be here, Catherine," the Professor told her. Measured tones as she pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose, and scanned the desk. "You've been busy."

Halsey did not respond. She let her work speak for itself: a large sheet of paper, criss-crossed with lines connecting vertices, sketches, nodes, scrawled handwriting. Like the work of a conspiracy theorist—or just how Halsey's mind worked.

At the centre, a massive letter 'C,' with nodes sprouting from it. 'Mantle's Approach.' 'Meridian.' 'Barnard's Star.' A further offshoot, a cloud of question marks. A drawn box on the edge: '1 shard = Cortano; 2+ shards = Cortani."

"One Cortana fragment is a Cortano," Hadid read. "I'm not sure it'll catch on."

"Well, it's all I've got." Halsey said. "There's nothing on here that _Infinity_ 's science team don't already know. It's a mind-mapping technique. I'm trying to organise my thoughts. It's all I can do."

"You could've stayed on the ship."

"And I'm not leaving John alone again," she replied. "I'm not leaving him in danger."

"Doctor, this is the safest colony we can reach right now. And I don't know if you've noticed, but this police station's main business is in parking fines and stolen bicycles," replied Hadid. "This is _the_ safest place that John can be right now."

"Then why won't you let me see him?"

"He's off-duty," the Professor replied. "If he wants to see you, he'll come and visit. He doesn't have to. He doesn't owe you anything."

Halsey's eyes flared. "That's not what I said—" she started.

"It's what was implied, Catherine," said Hadid.

Halsey stared into her mind map for a moment. Turned about in the desk chair.

Professor Hadid had a quality to her that Dr Halsey had not seen since Admiral Parangosky, or Colonel Ackerson. A quality that gave her a profound, instant enmity towards the Professor. It was hard to pin down _why_. With Hadid, Halsey had decided that she disliked her impeccable dress sense. Her perfectly pressed outfits, the way her headscarves fell over her shoulder 'just so,' her glasses—she was always immaculate where Halsey was scatty and disorganised. And as pathetic as Halsey knew it was, this made her angry.

"What do you think of me, Hadid?" she asked.

Hadid smiled, in that insufferable way she did, and answered her question with another question.

"What kind of question is that, Catherine?"

"What it says," Halsey replied. "What kind of person do you think I am?"

The Professor sighed.

"That's complicated," she replied.

"Damn right it's _complicated_." Halsey seemed to spit the last word out. Syllable by syllable. "Because just so we're clear, I know that what I've done is terrible. And yes, I feel guilt, and there is not a _single day_ when I do not wake up and regret what I did to John and—"

Hadid held her palm upright.

"I know, Catherine."

"Do you? _Really?_ Do you know what it's like?" Halsey stood. Nostrils flared. "I don't think you do. And I regret what I had to do every single day. _Every_ time I see the boy I met forty years ago, encased in a giant exoskeleton. I regret it. Every waking minute."

"Are you expecting me to forgive you?" asked Hadid. "Is this an apology?"

Dr Halsey had no answer to that.

"You're not owed forgiveness, Catherine," she continued. "And in any case, it isn't mine to give."

"I know," Halsey replied. Sat. Shook her head at the wall, confounded by herself. Confounded by her unfounded dislike for Professor Hadid—whose only crime, after all, had been to keep her in check, and to make steps towards _actually_ reintegrating John into society.

"Have you finished?"

She nodded. And after a pause: "How is he?"

"Well enough," replied Hadid, with a smile. "He spent the morning practicing his recorder and resting. He went out last night, got pretty—"

"Went _out_?" Halsey, incredulous. "Out, or _out_ out?"

"Mr Stjernberg and Mrs Møller took him out to a bar. Apparently they ended up at a club, but John didn't stay very long," Hadid replied. "He did _not_ partake in the..." and here she paused, searching for a word that would be appropriate, "...exploits."

"By 'exploits,'" demanded Halsey, "do you mean the fact those two seem to be nymphomianiacs, or are we talking about those interviews on camera they seem to want everyone to do?"

  
  


* * *

  
  


Over almost five years of doing nothing but sending distress signals, I had plenty of time to watch and listen.

There wasn't much there. No radio transmissions: so we were more than seven hundred light years from Earth, before humans started making radio transmissions. No alien transmissions. Just distorted echoes on subspace, nothing that was good enough for me to clean up and make a message out of.

So all I could do was watch you, and listen to you, and watch the stars as we drifted through the void.

I could listen to your neural lace. It wasn't the same as being in there—being inside your head, being _part_ of you—but it was a different perspective on what your mind was doing, while mine was working its way into the dust. I listened to your dreams.

Listening to _Infinity_ 's computers, by comparison, was easy. No need to decipher brainwaves when there were files there for the taking.

I found the pieces Hadid had been teaching you. Classics. _Sakura. Frère Jacques. Green and Blue. Greensleeves._ The main melody line from Pachelbel's _Canon in D_. Some Debussy, although she'd had some doubts about that (in a note to herself: ' _Will Halsey have played this?'_ ) Some early-millennium record-era stuff, too. _Feeling Good. What's Up. Perfect Day. I Would Die 4 U. Holding Out For A Hero._ Even one called _Halo._ The Professor clearly had a sense of humour.

There was more in your file. The ship's network tracking your neural lace, capturing your movements around the ship as you ran from place to place. To the lockers, to polish your weapons. To Hadid's office, for your music therapy sessions. To the S-deck, to run the drill sessions. To the War Games chamber, to punch your way through simulated Prometheans and fire pretend rockets at a pretend Warden.

And then you ran, and ran, and ran. Ran the length of _Infinity_ , and back. Down the staircases, and up. And along again. Not letting anything stop you.

And then, invariably, back home, to the little cabin they'd given you. For privacy, mainly. Palmer had insisted that you should have your own space where you couldn't be bothered for autographs and selfies, and Lasky had kicked himself for not thinking of that before. The eventual solution was to deposit four pre-fabricated containers in a shared dead-end corridor on the S-deck. One for Linda, one for Frederic, one for Kelly, one for you—it was only fair.

I listened for the floor plans. They looked nice. A bed. An en-suite shower large enough for you. Not a five-star hotel, but more luxury and privacy than you'd had in your life.

But then I listened to the attachments on your file. There was the video marked highly restricted by Professor Hadid... so, of course, I downloaded it. Watched it. Ingested it.

And I saw something I almost wished I hadn't.

  
  


* * *

  
  


John had not been expecting the wine to have a fizz. He liked it, though. Less aggressive, softer than the harsh carbonation of the Nub-Lite. And it didn't taste like a toxic substance, unlike the scotch from last night.

"That's nice," he had told Anne.

"There you go," she had replied. Turned to Kurt. "Told you. Wine person."

Three bottles later, Kurt leaned in John's direction and said, "I wonder if I can ask you something."

Normally, John would've dialed back his snark, restrained himself, and said simply, 'yes.'

Today, he said, "you already have. But shoot."

That made Anne and Kurt snort with laughter.

"I was thinking of a project I want to do," Kurt said. "A sculpture project. And I wanted to see if you'd be interested?"

"What kind of sculpture project?"

Kurt took a pen from his shirt pocket, and drew something out on a paper napkin. A wall, with a human figure in relief—and something boxy, angular, but also roughly humanoid next to it, also in relief.

"I want to say something about the link between human and machine. What makes us people," he said. "What part of us is human."

"I'm not sure I understand," John said.

"Well," replied Kurt, "the idea is, I show a cast of a Spartan. The person inside the machine, the machine as part of the person. Alongside. To make people think."

"A Spartan?"

"You," said Kurt.

John blinked. "You want me to—" and here he struggled to articulate— "you want me to do what?"

"Kurt's asking if you'd consider modelling for him," Anne said. "As part of this installation."

At this, she gave a side-eyed glance towards Kurt. Smirking, almost. Eyes drilling into his.

John didn't know how to respond to that.

"You don't have to," Kurt said, quickly, "but I thought it might be thought-provoking. Provocative—"

At this point, a sudden _pop_ came from the speaker set-up in Hogarth's Place. John flicked his eyes over—the bartender waved an apology as she plugged in another patch cable.

"Karaoke night," said Anne.

John winced. Not long ago, there had been a karaoke night in the bar on the S-Deck—even from his small cabin on the far end of the deck, he'd heard it. (Later that evening, he had dressed himself in an EVA suit and left _Infinity_ by a nearby airlock.)

"You were saying," he continued to Kurt.

"I think it might be cool," Kurt continued. "That's all. And I feel like there's something interesting to be said in how people perceive you. The man beyond the machine."

"What does modelling entail?" John asked.

Anne smirked at this.

"Well. I was thinking I want to take a relief," Kurt said. "So that would mean making a cast of you, then using that to create the sculpture. You wouldn't need to sit for hours—"

"He'll need to stand perfectly still for at least an hour, naked, while you cover him in plaster," Anne interrupted, "and then in the same position for another hour while it dries."

"Two hours," said Kurt. "Not long."

"You said he wouldn't need to sit for hours—"

"Do you speak from experience?" John asked Anne.

Kurt made a wicked grin. "Ouch," he said. "That hurts."

"True, though," Anne laughed, and kissed him.

John blinked. He had had enough of the rosé that when he moved his head, or blinked, it took longer than usual for him to realise what was happening, or for him to see the effect. It was a bizarre experience. Floaty. Almost like being in MJOLNIR when the systems were under stress and queued up your bio-impulses to keep up—

Normally, he would've said yes to whatever Anne and Kurt suggested. He was their guest, after all; he was also used to saying yes.

But just for now, he realised, he didn't need to decide immediately.

"I'll think about it," the Master Chief said to Kurt, and finished his glass of wine.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Lasky was _almost_ regretting giving his alcohol stash to Palmer for safe-keeping.

"It won't last," he had grinned to her then. "I don't care where you keep it, as long as it's in escrow and out of my reach. Unless I _really_ need it."

"When would you _really_ need it?"

"Don't know," Lasky had said, with a shrug.

Spartan Palmer had cocked her head, and bent down to pick up the two crates of whiskies, rums and wines Lasky had accrued over the last two years.

"Are you sure you're going to be OK with that?" the Captain had asked, to fill the silence.

"Don't know," Palmer had replied, lifting them effortlessly. "It's heavy. I might struggle." She'd winked, turned in something that was almost a pirouette, and left the room, MJOLNIR servos squeaking, carrying the crates as if they were feathers.

He _almost_ regretted it—but now, as he lay on the couch in Palmer's stateroom, he was relieved there'd been a whole bottle of single malt preserved for tonight. Lasky's head hurt already, and he didn't care. It had helped him talk matter-of-factly about thirty years ago. About the Corbulo Academy, and Chyler Silva, the girl who he'd never had the chance to call his girlfriend because she'd died saving his life.

And the Chief.

"That shook me," Lasky told Palmer, rubbing his temples. "Seeing that they were just kids. I had so much to process, but seeing that made me... freeze."

"They were around your age?"

"Yeah." He nodded, staring at the ceiling—as if that was more comforting than looking Palmer in the eye.

A moment of silence. Tom blinked, and had to remind himself to open his eyes again.

"There's a video on here," Palmer said, suddenly, and Lasky jolted his head to the side. She was on her datapad, tapping through pages of what the Captain assumed was the mission report from his own rescue on Circinus-IV.

Lasky wanted to say something, but could only groan with effort. Sarah's face glowed blue as she played the video, again, and again.

"That's a bold move," she said, finally. And then, raising her eyebrows: "You don't look sixteen here."

"I had to grow up very fast," Tom snorted.

"So that's your history with him, then," Palmer said, placing the datapad down. "He saved your life, you saved his."

"I owe him a debt," said Lasky.

"He was doing his job."

"He was a kid, he was—he's younger than me," the Captain said. "And yes, I guess it is favouritism, but I'm doing the best I can for my friend."

"You didn't speak to each other for thirty-one years," Palmer smirked.

"I know. I'm not proud of that."

Sarah surveyed him—Lasky could sense her eyes scanning his face like a book.

"There was something else," he added, not willing to let her tease this out of him—he was going to give it freely.

"What _else_?"

"This is going to sound so weird," Lasky said, breathing in—making an effort to sit upright.

"I'm gripped," Sarah smiled. "Go on." It was almost one of her trademark smirks—but she kept her eyebrows open. Understanding. Easing off the snark.

The words came out of Tom's mouth easily, but unevenly. He tried to look Palmer in the eye while recounting it, but ultimately found the ceiling a more comforting audience.

"It didn't properly hit me what had happened until we—we were being evacuated in a Pelican, and we docked with a ship. _UNSC Quel Dommage._ I was just—"

He reached for the word, and lost it.

"Stunned. Shell-shocked," Palmer offered.

Lasky nodded. "I couldn't process it until we got onto the ship. The first moment it hit me was when I was alone in the ablutions, and I just sat and cried under the shower for two hours."

"Two hours," Palmer said. "Very teenage."

Lasky raised his head to see her face—the Commander, realising how insensitive that was, looked mortified. Already opening her mouth to apologise. But truth be told...

Tom snorted. "I guess so," he chuckled. "I was a typical teenager."

"So you cried in the shower, and then..."

"And then someone else using the showers came and asked me if I was OK," said Lasky. "This man I hadn't seen before."

"Tom, is this a story about your sexual awakening, or what?"

For a moment, Lasky felt like he should be offended—but he laughed before he could be. A messy, hot laugh. As Tunde called it, his "drunk laugh."

"It helped me," Tom said, eventually, once he had calmed down and found room to breathe. "He sat with me in the mess, he brought me some pizza, some coffee... some tissues... and he listened to me. He let me just talk at him for hours. About my brother, about my mom, about Chyler, about those damn cryo suits..."

"Who was this, Tom?" Sarah asked—but Lasky kept going.

"And he told me. He told me about the first time he was cryonically frozen, and he came out covered in blisters. He told me about his friend who'd died a few weeks before. He told me he didn't know what to do and he missed his friend. And I asked him if his mom was as terrible as my mom was, and he—"

"Tom, what was his name?"

"I asked him," Lasky replied. "He froze when I asked him about his mom, and then he said he needed to go, and I asked him his name... he didn't answer."

"What did he look like?"

"He was... early twenties, I thought. White. Maybe Native American or European heritage... he had a very strong jaw. Brown hair, very intense blue eyes. He didn't smile much. Lots of freckles. I think I saw surgical scars on his wrists." The Captain scoffed. "I thought I recognised him from somewhere, but I didn't realise where. But I had an idea."

"And three decades later..."

Palmer let the silence lie for a moment.

"I never thanked him for that," Tom said. "I didn't even realise, and I wish... I dunno. I wish I'd done something more? Kept in touch with him? Helped him with his own grief?"

"You're doing that now, Tom," Sarah replied.

"She's not dead."

"But he's still grieving," Palmer told him. "And she may as well be dead. Cortana as he knew her, and whatever... _thing_ she is now... they're not the same thing."

"Whatever things, plural."

"Mhmm." The Commander nodded, and after a moment's more silence: "You know, you could just tell him? When he gets back?"

"You mean—"

"Say you remember what happened, and say thank you to him," Palmer suggested. "He'll probably appreciate it."

The Captain rubbed his temples. Breathed. It hurt.

"Yeah," he said. "Probably." And then he turned his head to Palmer: "Thanks, Sarah. Talking about this helps."

"Have you considered talking therapy?"

"Everyone's oversubscribed," Lasky replied. "And I think talking to other people... I find it easier if other people have experience of it. And what the Chief said..." and here he rubbed his temples again, and coughed, forgetting to time his breaths correctly in an intoxicated stupor. "It was kind. It made me feel like I wasn't alone. And I just thought, for all those years... 'who am I? I'm just a kid who can't shoot a gun or come out of a freezer without screaming.'"

Palmer opened her mouth to speak—

"And you know, _to this day,_ " Lasky said, "I have a duty to be there for people in the same place I was. Like he was. Because it's right. Because it's kind."

The Commander nodded.

"And I don't care if that makes me touchy-feely, but it helps me too. When I have doubts about what we're doing."

"I'd rather have a touchy-feely you than a pig-headed Del Rio," smirked Palmer.

Lasky laughed at that. "Del Runaway," and here he downed the remainder of his shot glass, "lest we forget."

"Our dearly departed," Palmer said, standing, brushing herself off. "Go on. Get back to your own rooms and get some rest. Go have a shower or something, or go to the gardens. You need some R&R time. I'll check in on the bridge."

"You're not FLEETCOM-trained," Lasky replied, trying to right himself—and stopping when it hurt too much. On his reflection, caught in Palmer's console mirror, the Captain's face was still bright pink.

"And you've been running for months without an XO," replied Palmer. "And you're drunk."

"You've had some too."

"I've had less than you think. And look at me," she said—and at this, she made a single, precise, balletic spin on one boot, and stopped rigid, perfectly facing the Captain. "I'm fine."

Lasky snorted. "I bow to your superior motor control and chemical tolerance," he said. "You never told me. Is that a Spartan thing, or a you thing?"

"I'm not at liberty to tell you the extent of my Spartan augmentations," said Palmer, turning to leave, "but I can tell you that Spartan Locke falls over if he eats too many grapes."

"A you thing, then," Lasky said. With great effort, he positioned himself upright, on both buttocks, braced by his hands. And then, before standing, wondered aloud: "I wonder what the Chief's like when he's drunk."

  
  


* * *

  
  


Did you know that the camera in the MJOLNIR helmet was my idea?

It had tactical advantages. It meant I could guess if you were trying to chin a control and couldn't reach it, and activate it for you. It meant I could tell when you were tired, and plan accordingly. It meant I could watch you while you slept, and monitor your rapid eye movements.

But also (and I think you knew this) it meant I was privy to your emotions. Your suit was your inner sanctum, the place where you felt safe. The place where you felt like a Spartan. The faceplate hid your mouth and your eyes; the suit speaker added a gravelly bass to your voice. Over time, your natural speaking voice has moved closer to the sound the voicemitter produces. It's hard to know what's you, and what's the suit... from the outside.

From inside your suit, and inside your head, I could see everything. Your smirks at my jokes. The flushes of colour in your face when you were scared, or taken aback by flattery or niceness. The grimaces you pulled more freely to signal your distaste, when you knew I and no-one else was watching.

So maybe I just felt entitled to the footage I saw. You'd shared every emotion with me for so long—it seemed normal.

But I realised, after digesting the video attached to your file, that this was not something intended for sharing.

It was a three-track recording, from the three closed-circuit cameras monitoring the small, dead-end concourse that contained the four containers—your home. One from the aft end. One around ten metres forward of that. And one at eye level.

I could guess the circumstances from the date. October 29th, 2558. The early hours by _Infinity_ 's internal clock. Just after your return from Sanghelios, after being freed from the Meridian Guardian—from another me.

You strode back from the assemblage bay in your undersuit, zipper half-undone. Your hair, longer than I'd ever seen it in person, flattened by sweat, then given volume by static—the copper colour, the greying strands waving and curling a little. You looked good. Handsome.

At a little before three a.m., you entered your personal shipping container. You slid the door shut behind you, and locked it.

It was a few seconds before the first _bang_ from within.

Then another. And another.

Your container shook as Fred and Kelly opened the doors to theirs, confused, alarmed.

A dent appeared in the outer wall.

Linda emerged from her own cabin, told the other two to stand back, and peeled away the door to your container with her left hand.

They could probably have restrained you. But they let you carry on. They allowed you to let it all out by punching the wall, punching the counter, with one fist, two. The blows landing with a _thump_ as you bared your teeth, and breathed, evenly.

You turned to face them, once you were done. Your breaths becoming staggering, ragged, hot with rage, and embarrassment, and shame.

I saw that, and at that moment, wished I'd been there to tell you to calm down—but it would've been pointless. In a way, I also felt guilty. It was _me_ you'd fallen out with (even if it was a part of me I disagreed with.)

And that strengthened my resolve to put things right.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_"—girl, you so hot, you keep taking me higher / I'll give you my fuel rod, you'll set me on fire / oh babe, you're RA-DI-O-ACTIVE!"_

John looked at Kurt and Anne. Anne held her fingers in her ears, her eyes like thunder. Kurt's mouth was contorted in a wince.

Lance Corporal Brock C. Bolton III did not have a good singing voice. Nor was he an especially good dancer. This didn't stop Privates Morrissey and Coelho from clapping in time to the music, cheering as he failed to hit any notes.

"Is this supposed to be fun?" the Master Chief asked, once the song had finished.

"Trust me," replied Kurt. "It's more fun when you're up there and you've had some drinks."

"I'm not going up there." John tried to say it with some level of finality, but he knew he was smiling as he said it. And there was no way of hiding that.

"Come on," said Anne, "I know you can do it."

"I can't sing," he replied. (He didn't know this. He did not remember ever trying. But he also didn't like the idea of trying to find out in front of Lance Corporal Bolton's squad.)

"You can't be worse than him," Kurt smirked.

John looked back at the stage. The music had moved to the middle eight, and Bolton was now gyrating his hips in time to the beat. Trying to capture John's attention with his eyes—or maybe Anne's. It was hard to tell from here.

"He likes you," Kurt said to Anne.

"Last night obviously left an impression on him." Anne finished her wine as Bolton forgot he was supposed to come in at the end of the bridge, drew in a deeper breath than was really necessary, and coughed his way through the last verse, even more off-key than before.

From two tables across, Private O'Brien made a grimacing face. He caught John's eye, made a pistol with his fingers, and mimed shooting himself in the mouth with it.

The song ended. Privates Coelho and Morrissey made the only whoops above a short patter of sarcastic clapping from the other patrons.

"I'm going to do it," said Anne, standing, flexing her fingers between themselves. Making for the stage, picking up a microphone, and entering something on the keypad.

"Here we go," said Kurt.

A sudden synthesised stab came from the speakers. An arpeggiated bassline, a sequenced drum beat.

John was used to the volume of the speakers now, and wasn't tensing in panic every time there was a loud noise. Maybe he'd just listened to enough karaoke that he was used to it. Maybe it was the wine.

 _"I'm not a woman / I'm not a man,"_ began Anne—her voice cracking and disappearing partway through the line. She'd started an octave too high.

John knew—because, he realised, he knew this song.

_"...I'll never beat you, I'll never lie / And if you're evil I'll forgive you by and by, 'cause U... / I would die 4 U..."_

Anne pointed at John's table. At Kurt—

_"...darling, if you want me to..."_

Kurt pointed at himself, and made a walking gesture with his fingers.

"Not you," Anne shouted, in between lines, _"I would die 4 U /_ John, come on!"

John grimaced. Shook his head—but he could feel his own grimace turning into a laugh.

"I can't!"

But a roar of approval was building from the other tables. Bolton's ODSTs cheered.

 _"I'm not your lover / I'm not your friend / I am something that you'll never comprehend /_ I've heard you play this on your recorder, get up here and play it!"

Anne stretched her arm out. Beckoning. Inviting.

John scanned the room. Most of the tables had at least one person goading him on. The ODSTs were on their feet. Clapping. Cheering.

"You play _what_ , Chief?" shouted Private Coelho.

This, John knew, was how mobs started. How, if you weren't careful when trying to manage a group of civilians, you could end up overwhelmed, captured, or worse. They'd been trained on it. Kelly had developed the syllabus: "Crowd management in Spartan Time." Ultra-fast reading of the room, and finding the right things to say and do so nobody got injured—

On the other hand, John thought to himself in that split second, he couldn't be worse than Bolton was. And what did he have to lose?

He sprang for the stage, pulling his recorder from his pants pocket, and played. Just as Professor Hadid had taught him.

With practice, he'd got quite good at it.

He did mis-time a few of his breaths. The tempo was not quite the same as Hadid's programs. But he kept going. Correcting. Abbreviating. Repeating until he was back in time. Anne bouncing her head in time, whipping her hair as John's fingers covered the wrong holes and he forgot to tongue the last note and it cracked as he blew into the mouthpiece—

But he was breathless. His cheeks hurt, from blowing, from smiling. Privates Coelho and Morrissey and O'Brien and Kurt applauded and cheered.

 _"YOU!"_ Anne threw her arm forward, pointing—at John.

And John said—sang—with her, in unison:

_"I would die 4 U / Darling, if you want me to."_

He couldn't really hear his own voice over the sound from the speakers. Or the sound of the patrons clapping. Or Anne's voice.

But as the last note swept up, cheers rose from the rest of the room. Kurt was on his feet.

And Anne applauded, and then—quite suddenly—drew her arms loosely around John, and kissed him on the lips.

"." John said, or tried to. No sound came out of his mouth. He tried again: opened his mouth, said: "???"

"You did so well," she replied, beaming. "That was fun!"

He wanted to reply. Felt a heat in his face, and a drought in his mouth as he couldn't formulate any coherent words.

And then John heard a voice behind him:

"I thought you never died, Chief."

He spun around. Lance Corporal Bolton was there, a few metres from the stage. One bottle of Nub-Lite in his left hand, an empty one in his right.

"Say again?" said the Master Chief. Unsure what he'd heard.

"'I would die for you.' I thought Spartans never died." He lunged forward a little as he said it, his pale skin flushed red with something—drunkenness? Pent-up fury? Jealousy?

The Privates saw Bolton edging closer to the Chief, and tensed up—on edge. O'Brien stood, as if ready to intervene.

"Unless my whole life is a lie," Bolton continued. "I've lost a lot of men. But Spartans never die? Not for us."

"We do," John replied—voice low, measured, as he consciously tried to emulate the extra layer of assertiveness the MJOLNIR voicemitter would give him.

"You do something, right," said Bolton. He took another swig of Nub-Lite, then dropped the empty bottle to the floor, allowing it to smash and shatter.

Silence had fallen in _Hogarth's Place_. The bar staff had tensed up, too.

And then John asked:

"So you think, because of a slogan on a poster a few years ago..."

"It's what you do," Bolton said—an edge coming onto his voice, more vibrato. And then he burped, and said: "You turn up, you march around with your human shields of _my men_ , and you take all the credit and get _all_ the glory, and then you disappear and leave a fucking mess that _we_ have to clean up. Spartans never die because we die for you."

John processed this. Blinked, slowly.

There were many things wrong with what Bolton had said. Using 'men' to mean 'soldiers' or 'marines'. Repeating a propaganda slogan from wartime which was just that—a propaganda slogan. And the human shield thing.

But the thing John found most wrong—the thing that had lit a white-hot rage inside his chest, and made him feel sick with anger...

"And you're saying I don't know what it's like?"

Bolton moved forward—or rather, to John, it looked like he lunged forward. Maybe it was his own reactions slowing because of the alcohol. But he was not one to take risks.

He straightened his back, and took the microphone from Anne's right hand in his left.

"You think I don't know what it's like to lose someone? To let someone down and have them pay the price and carry that guilt with me?"

Bolton placed the remaining bottle of Nub-Lite on the nearest table. Slowly. Deliberately. Turned to face the Master Chief, and puffed out his chest.

"You will never understand," he said, a burst capillary on his forehead bulging. "You will _never_ know what my men went through and the sacrifices we made to keep you safe. And you may think you can come swanning in here and act like everything's normal..."

And even though the Master Chief knew, remembered from Kelly's conflict resolution syllabus, that he should wait for Lance Corporal Bolton to finish and run out of arguments and run out of energy—

"The sacrifices?" he interrupted, sotto, holding the microphone millimetres from his mouth. "I don't know about sacrifice? Of course I know about sacrifice."

"...and yeah, you know about sacrifice, alright," Bolton continued. Raising his voice over the amplified voice of the Master Chief. "You know about sacrificing people and then saying 'oh, it's so sad,' while collecting your next Purple Heart for an ingrowing toenail."

He stopped.

The Master Chief let the air stand for a moment. Tried his best to formulate a way in his head to express his anger at this that wouldn't escalate the situation.

"...and then," said Bolton, stuffing the dead air with his own voice (true to form), "you and your little holographic porn girlfriend, Katana, or whatever it is, _you_ stop jacking off to it for a minute, and then it takes over the world! The whole of Earth, just out like a lightbulb."

He snapped his fingers. Then clapped, slowly.

"Well done, Master Chief. Spartans. Never die, my ass."

The Master Chief gripped the microphone tighter.

"John," Anne whispered—moving closer behind him. Reaching out to touch his right hand, which he only now noticed he had clenched in a fist.

And John took a deep breath, and opened his mouth:

"Is that what you think of me?"

And before Bolton could answer, the Master Chief continued:

"Is that what you think I want? I just want the medals and the honours and the attention? Because if that's what you want to think, Marine, I'm fine with that—"

 _"John—"_ Anne tried to cut in, her hand barely able to close around the Master Chief's clenched fist—

"but don't you _DARE_ say to me," the Master Chief said, his words coming in the angry volcanic flow that was raging in his chest, "that I and my Spartans don't know about sacrifice. I have failed more times and let down more people, and I have lost more friends than you would _dare_ to count, and I can never mourn them but when I close my eyes—"

And he closed his eyes, and realised he couldn't remember— in his mind's eye, the faces were blurred: Sam, Arthur, Solomon, Miranda, Johnson, Tillson, Sekibo, Cortana—

"I can't remember all the faces of the people I've lost. All the people I've failed to save. All the people who put their trust in me, and whose trust I didn't honour—"

"Stop it, John—" and the Master Chief heard Anne's voice cracking, and he could see Kurt watching from the corner with his eyes glistening, close to tears, and he didn't care—

"—and I didn't even have a choice! And I'm fine with that! But I never wanted to save the world. I never wanted to be taken away from my home, and see my friends die when they were still kids, so—"

"Chief—" O'Brien whispered, from a distance, holding his hand up, an empty gesture that did nothing—

"—and as for Cortana," John said, slowing down to catch his breath for another paroxysm of rage that Bolton had stirred within him, " _HOW DARE YOU_ reduce my best friend to her appearance. She died to save my life and everyone else's. She tore her mind into hundreds of pieces. She was brave in the face of death and she fought to the end, and she was the _only_ person who ever accepted me for what I was, so—"

And he moved forward, and Anne tightened her grip—trying, fruitlessly, to pull him back.

But he did not touch Bolton. Only stood close enough that he could feel his breath and loom over him.

"So." He said it staccato, one word per breath, because that was all he could muster. "Don't. You. Fucking. Dare."

He breathed. Loosened his grip, let the microphone drop to the floor, where it landed with a loud pop through the speaker system. Turned away.

And as he did so, Bolton opened his mouth, and whispered under his breath.

"Fuckin' pussy."

And before John could do anything, he saw Anne leap past him, and twisted his head around just in time to see her fist make contact with his nose.


	4. …I Will Tell You No Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious discovery by Blue Team when attempting to salvage a shipyard, and a surprise for Prof. Hadid as she deals with the fallout from Anne's bar fight, leads to a shocking revelation for the crew of _Infinity_.
> 
> The Master Chief, oblivious to the imminent danger and drunk on rosé, kisses another person for the first time in his adult life.

"Spartan Commander on the Bridge," announced Roland, as Palmer rounded the corner. It took a few seconds for Lieutenants Cameron and Gomez to raise their arms in salute.

Palmer could've corrected them, but she was not in the mood for that particular battle today. Instead, she sat in the (empty) second helm officer's seat, and peered at Ensign Do's screen.

` **TRANSITION: 3m42** `

Do looked to eir right, and realised she was there with a sudden jolt. Eir arm snapped to eir head.

"At ease, Ensign," said Palmer.

"Sorry, ma'am," e said, shuffling back against the padding of the seat, coddling emself in the material. "I wasn't expecting you there."

"I'm the least scary thing out here, Ensign," Palmer said. She brought up the destination display on her own screen. `**τ cet/REEF**`. "Finally here to pick up Blue Team, then?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Do.

"They know we're coming?"

"They should be expecting us sometime around now," said Roland, his avatar flickering into life on the holotank. "Assuming nothing's changed?"

And in Palmer's ear only, using her neural lace, he asked: _"Shouldn't the Captain be here?"_

 _"He's taking a rest,"_ Palmer replied by thought. _"He needs it. Leave him be."_

 _"Very well."_ And using his avatar and the bridge's audio systems again, he said: "Do we want to tell them we're coming?"

Palmer knew well enough about the _parameters_ of Blue Team's mission. After the raid on the AS-81 shipyard had turned out to be rather more fruitful than they'd been expecting, the logical next port of call was the shipwreck reef at Tau Ceti. It had been the location of a massive Covenant refit and repair station, until the end of the war when Humanity had destroyed it, most of the Covenant fleet, and a fair proportion of its own fleet as well. Now was as good a time as any to assess if there was anything there worth taking, and anything worth scuttling so Cortana couldn't get her hands on it.

What she did not know—and was almost dreading finding out—was exactly how Spartans 058, 087, and 104 would _accomplish_ that mission. They'd been dropped off in a Pelican, which would have enough space for a small, token amount of cargo. But knowing their history, she was regretting giving them as much ordnance as she had.

"Yes," said Palmer. "We need to know what to expect."

"You'll need to scramble it," replied Roland.

"Use the box, then."

Roland folded his arms. Fixed Palmer with a glare.

"Well, I can't, can I? It's specifically designed so I'm _not_ able to use it."

Palmer sighed—but she also felt guilty. And Jespersen wasn't at his station. She stood from her seat, and dashed to the next room to find Lasky's stateroom door closed. She rang the bell. No response.

_"He's not inside, is he?"_

_"I can't tell,"_ replied Roland, in Palmer's ear.

He would either be here or in the R&R zone. Or still in Palmer's own stateroom. But she didn't have time for social niceties. She knew the Captain well enough anyway.

She opened the door. Saw the box where it had been a few hours ago, during their last update with Hadid; she took it from the table, and closed the door, quietly, not bothering (or wanting) to look to see if the Captain was asleep in his quarters.

"Here we are," she said, returning to the secondary helm officer's position, and placing the box on the desk. Turned the dial to the frequency the Captain had marked **BLUE TEAM**.

Before she could push **TALK** , a voice came from the box:

_"...Aleph Zero, this is Aleph Two..."_

"Copy," said Palmer—and realised...

"Nine ninety-four three twelve," said Ensign Do.

Palmer, surprised that e had taken the initiative, repeated Ensign Do's randomly generated channel number, entered it into her own box, and held down the yellow toggle.

"Aleph Zero to Aleph Two," she said, "please confirm?"

 _"Loud and clear,"_ said a voice—Linda. _"Is that you, Commander? Where's the Captain?"_

"He got shit-faced on single malt," said Palmer—and, in the corner of her eye, saw Do stare at her with disbelief, eir mouth hanging open. "He'll be back once he's rested up."

 _"Don't blame him,"_ said Linda. _"Commander, we've found something strange, we'll need to prep a medical party to meet us in the loading bay."_

"Is someone injured?"

 _"We're fine, ma'am,"_ Linda replied, _"but we've picked up some guests."_

"Again?" Palmer rolled her eyes. "We can't keep bringing people aboard like this. We're not a hotel."

_"It's hard to explain, but expect us to bring back some cargo. We have twenty-nine cryo-chambers, all occupied."_

Palmer looked at Do. Mouthed, _did I hear that right?_ at em, and e nodded in response.

" _Twenty-nine_ cryo-chambers?"

 _"You'll need to see it,"_ said Linda.

"One minute to transition," said Do.

"Roland," said Palmer—

"I've already told Dr Jemison," he replied. "They're coming, and they're bringing four more with them. Master Sergeant Stacker's also coming, you can watch through his camera."

"Thanks." And then, to Do and to Roland: "Do we have someone ready to open the doors?"

"Yes," replied Do.

"Of course," said Roland, speaking over Do.

Not willing to wind Roland up any further, Palmer asked: "Who are these people, Linda?"

 _"We don't know,"_ she replied. _"The idents are completely blank, they don't have neural laces."_

"And where did you find them?"

 _"Well,"_ said Linda, and Palmer heard a sigh before she continued: _"that's a long story."_

  
  


* * *

  
  


"You OK?"

John swallowed the last bite of the ham sandwich. Blinked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Do you want me to bring you anything else?"

He shook his head no. "I'm feeling better now," he told Kurt.

"How much better?"

"Just better," the Master Chief replied.

Kurt took another sip from his bottle of water.

"I feel like I should apologise for my wife's behaviour," he said, not making eye contact—as if he was unable to. "Anne probably thought it would help."

"It's fine," John replied.

"And... you know. When she's drunk, she does stupid things. She brought those meatheads home last night. It wasn't much fun for me."

"I'm not surprised." John sipped his own water. Set his eyes to the horizon, to the sea rolling inwards, as Kurt continued:

"I mean, only one of them... the redhead, O'Brien, he was the only one who was interested in me. And he decided he'd had enough after a couple of minutes and left. So I was just on the edges, like..."

"I'm sorry," John said. More because he didn't want the gory details on exactly what the ODSTs had got up to with Anne last night. He toyed with the idea of telling Kurt that O'Brien had gone to sleep on his bed in the guest room, but—

"It's alright," said Kurt. "You win some, you lose some. It's not like we don't get enough sex."

"I wouldn't know," replied John.

Kurt scoffed.

"You didn't realise?"

"Didn't realise what?"

"That me and Anne are in an open relationship," said Kurt, looking a little flushed with embarrassment. "How did you not realise that?"

"I realised it," John replied. He took another sip of water, coughing. Still a little tipsy, but recovering fast. (The food had helped.) "It just doesn't interest me."

"In what way?"

John didn't answer that.

"As in, what are you not interested in?" Kurt wasn't letting it go. "Our sex lives? Other people's sex lives? Sex in general?"

"All of them," replied the Master Chief.

Kurt mumbled something like, "mhmm," and then asked: "so you're ace, then?"

John thought about it—truth be told, for the first time.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess. I never gave it thought."

"You've never been interested?"

"It never occurred to me," said John. "I never thought about it."

Kurt took another sip from his water. His skin had flushed a warmer colour.

"Are all Spartans like that?" he asked.

John wondered, and realised he didn't know the answer to that... or he did, but only by elimination.

"Not really," he said. Aware that this was classified and something he was not allowed to tell Kurt, but knowing that he could trust Kurt—and he was also too drunk to care. "A few of us have had kids."

"You don't need to have sex to have kids," replied Kurt. "And you don't have to want kids to have sex."

"I know that," said John. "But not me. I never tried it, I've never been interested."

"Never?"

"Never," said John. He picked up his own bottle of water, loosened the cap with his teeth, and, finding it was emptier than he remembered, drank a few drops of warm water and a gulp of air. And then he made motions to haul himself onto his feet, saying, "I'm going to get some—"

"Have some of mine," said Kurt, offering his own bottle. A civilian design, transparent, blue. More than half full.

"Thanks," said John, taking the bottle from Kurt's outstretched hand, and draining its contents in less than twenty seconds. He took a breath at the end, at which point a large belch rose in his throat, and then he felt bad for drinking all of it.

"It's fine," said Kurt. "You must've been thirsty."

"Mhmm," said John.

Kurt laid back, his hair twitching and his open shirt billowing as the wind picked up. They were sat side-by-side on the sandy portion of the beach, the Old Wizard looming to the east about a kilometre away. The Near-Sun had just set, and the Far-Sun only cast a faint purple aspersion in the sky—enough for some warmth, but not a lot.

The police had turned up to arrest Anne and Lance Corporal Bolton, although John imagined that the base commander at Aalborg Haven would have something to say about his behaviour too. They'd interviewed Kurt and John, and sent them on their way—and so now they'd ended up here, John eating sandwiches, trying to sober up and forget the decisions that led him here.

And then he asked Kurt, because he was curious and tired and not thinking straight: "What does it feel like?"

It took Kurt a moment to clock that he was talking about sex. And he flushed a little pinker when he did realise.

"I can't explain it," he said. "It's... everything. It's too big for words. To be sharing yourself with someone like that."

"Mhmm," said John again, feeling drowsy, and grateful for the softness of the sand as he laid on his back.

He heard Kurt inhale breath. A tiny, uncontrolled catch in his throat. John was well aware that Kurt found him attractive, and he was fine with that: there were others who had made him far more uncomfortable with their advances, some of them on _Infinity_. And he _understood_ that Kurt was an attractive man in his own right, at least in a conventional sense, although it wasn't an attraction that John saw or understood himself.

After Kurt had stood, taken the two bottles of water to the nearest fountain, and returned them, re-filled, he asked: "you've never tried anything?"

"Nope," replied John. Not moving his head. Closing his eyes, enjoying the rest it gave his irises and optical nerves.

Kurt breathed in again, and asked:

"You've never kissed anyone? Until Anne just now?"

John thought hard about it, before answering: "Probably in school. When I was very young. I don't remember it."

"Not as an adult?"

He shook his head.

And then Kurt asked:

"Do you want to try?"

John thought about it.

"No strings attached," Kurt added, quickly. "It doesn't have to be anything serious. Unless you want it to."

John, opening his eyes, could see him sweating. Clearly, this was an idea that had Kurt had been playing with for some time.

It wasn't something that John felt strongly about either way. He didn't find the idea of pushing his lips against someone else's inherently disgusting. He didn't recall ever feeling an urgent desire to do so.

But Kurt was offering it to him, on his own terms.

And John _was_ here under orders to decompress, to relax, to have fun.

And his head was light, with a mellow stupor, with surprise at the kindness Kurt and Anne had shown him, and with the guess that—maybe—he might enjoy it.

"Why not?" he said.

Kurt's mouth cracked into an unassuming smile. A flash of surprise, maybe.

"Do you want to?" asked John.

Kurt gave a tiny nod. And then, uncertain, asked: "do _you_ want to? You don't have to say yes."

An actual choice. Like one of the ones Hadid gave him.

And when John said, "yes," it felt liberating, because it was his choice.

Kurt's hands felt cold against his cheeks. His eyes, hazel coloured, beady. The smell of shampoo, the bristle of his stubble.

It took John a few seconds to even realise when Kurt's lips first made contact with his—brief, soft, gentle in a way that felt alien.

"This is so weird," he whispered, close enough that John could feel the outflow from his lungs.

And then Kurt moved in again, and kissed him.

John, unsure sure what to do with his mouth, experimented. Moving his lips a little. Introducing some suction. Poking his tongue at the corner of Kurt's jowls. Allowing Kurt to pull him forward—

and sending them both toppling over their centre of gravity, and into the sand.

 _"Shit,"_ John said. "Sorry."

Kurt rolled onto his back. He took a breath, said, "wow," and began to laugh—but it evaporated in seconds as he made eye contact with John.

"Is everything OK?" John asked.

"I don't know," said Kurt. "Is it OK for you? You're not smiling."

"Oh."

John hadn't noticed. He could not see his own face, which he assumed was frozen in an odd expression.

"It's OK," he said, quickly. "I just don't smile a lot."

Kurt's smile this time was tentative. Uneasy.

"What did you think?" he asked.

John looked out to sea. To the stars, twinkling, and to the waves of colour from Fordlandia's arrangement of suns and rings.

"I didn't hate it," he replied. And then, unsure, asked: "how did I do?"

Kurt's uneasy smile broke into a laugh. Unguarded.

"Don't worry about it," he said, the smile looking more like a genuine grin. "It was great. There isn't a right or wrong way to do it. As long as you enjoyed it."

He paused, and, gingerly, moved his right hand from John's cheek to his shoulder.

"Did you enjoy it?" asked Kurt.

"It was wet," John said, avoiding the question.

That made Kurt laugh again. "People's lips are usually wet and squishy, unless they're dead. Did it put you off?"

"No," John said. "I'm just not sure."

Kurt let out a 'hmm' sound, and—resigned—moved his hands off John.

"Thank you," Kurt said, "for indulging me." Sitting upright, doing up the buttons on his shirt, and wrapping his arms around himself as the windchill started to bite.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," the Master Chief replied.

"I'm glad you didn't hate it," replied Kurt, smirking.

And—truth be told—John, indifferent as he was to the experience, was glad he'd tried it. And glad that it had been here, with some degree of privacy, a good five klicks up the coastline from the Old Wizard, looming in the cliff-face as the sky glimmered—

 _"Shit,"_ John blurted, staggering—haphazardly—to his feet as he remembered where he said he would be.

Kurt, face stricken with concern, asked: "what is it?"

"I said I'd be somewhere," replied the Master Chief.

"Where?" asked Kurt—but John had already started running, his heels kicking up small lumps of sandy ejecta as he jogged, _sprinted_ —

And he did not have time, nor desire, nor obligation to answer Kurt as he abandoned trying to give chase, and shouted, _"where are you going?"_

Because that was a secret, for him and for 139 Fated Bairn, and for them alone.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Gudrun Hadid had not imagined herself making _two_ trips to the police station in one Fordlandian day, but here she was.

The desk sergeant, pudgy and with no name badge, asked her to spell Anne's name, typed it into her datapad, and frowned.

"I can't find anyone of that name here," she said.

Odd.

"Can I check the spelling?" Hadid asked, peering onto the desk sergeant's screen—at which point she turned it away.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I can't show you the contents of my screen. It's classified."

Hadid frowned. Understandable. But—

"A-n-n-e, m-slashed o-l-l-e-r," she repeated. "Lives at Regnebuegåde 11."

The desk sergeant searched again.

"Nothing here," she said.

"You're telling me you've not seen Anne Møller tonight? White, dark hair? Lives at the water mill on Regnebuegåde?"

The desk sergeant, peeved, shook her head.

"She got arrested for affray at Hogarth's Place. Literally just there," Hadid said, pointing across the street.

"People who've been arrested come in the back entrance," the desk sergeant replied. "I don't see them as they come in."

"Madam," Hadid sighed, her reserves of patience running thin. "I was in your custody suite visiting someone earlier. I counted eleven suites in there. You can't have lost someone that easily."

"I can only say what my system tells me," said the desk sergeant. "And all it's telling me now is that the only Anne Møller we've ever had on Fordlandia died thirty-nine years ago."

"That can't be right," said Hadid. "Check again, please."

The desk sergeant, looking as annoyed as Hadid felt, entered the name again. Produced the record, locked off the screen, and placed it on the counter.

` **ANNE MØLLER. Parents: Nanna Møller, Josef Møller; * 2219.08.28, X 2219.08.28. Cause of death: Stillbirth.** `

Hadid frowned. This couldn't be right. Anne and Kurt had lived on Fordlandia for years prior to travelling around as documentarians and sculptors.

"Something's wrong," she muttered to herself. And then, realising she needed to talk to someone to think it through: "I need to visit someone else," she said to the desk sergeant.

"Name, please." The desk sergeant took the tablet back, and, under her breath, said: 'if this is Anne Møller again, I'm going to punch your lights out.'

Unprofessional, childish, but Hadid ignored it.

"Catherine Elsa Hallam," she said. "Off-world. She arrived from _UNSC Infinity_ two days ago, she's due to go back in two days."

The desk sergeant entered Halsey's fake name, and looked over the rim of her glasses at Professor Hadid.

"Don't tell me she's dead too," said Hadid.

The desk sergeant's eyes practically rolled back into their sockets.

"Come with me," she said, standing. After a couple of seconds, she emerged from behind her desk, opened the door to the cell block, and Hadid followed her to custody suite four.

"She might be asleep," the desk sergeant warned Hadid, as she knocked at the door and called, _"Doctor Hallam? You have a visitor."_

There was no response.

"It's urgent," said Hadid. Something was very wrong here, and she couldn't place her finger on it—

The desk sergeant opened the door.

Inside, the light was on—but the cell was empty.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Do and Palmer watched on their console displays through Master Sergeant Stacker's helmet-camera, as he surveyed the Spartans of Blue Team hauling the cryo-chambers down the Pelican's gangplank.

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?" Do whispered to Palmer. She nodded her assent, and e muted eir microphone and asked: "what's Sergeant Stacker doing there, ma'am?"

"Believe it or not, he trained as a combat medic," Palmer replied. "He's more qualified than he likes to let on."

Do nodded. "I did see him in the medical bay a lot lately."

"He's been bothering me for a transfer to a smaller team," said Palmer. "Maybe he's having a mid-life crisis."

"I see," Do said. E looked back at eir console, eir face showing something between shame (at being told something that was probably private) and intrigue (at Master Sergeant Stacker's career being more varied than e had realised) and a gentle thrill at Palmer sharing some interesting gossip with em.

"Don't worry," Palmer said, sipping from a mug of coffee e only now realised that she had. "You've got all that to come."

Ensign Do sighed. Realised, as Palmer fixed em with her death-glare, that it had perhaps been too loud.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," Do lied.

"You're clearly thinking of something," said Palmer.

"Well, yes," said Do. And after pausing, to be sure Palmer wasn't going to raise her voice and interrupt em: "I'm not sure I'll get there right now, because right now I don't know if there _is_ more to life than just running from Cortana, non-stop—"

 _"Bridge?"_ came a voice from the consoles. Stacker. _"Stacker calling the Bridge, any chance you folks could pay attention?"_

Palmer and Do scrambled to switch their microphones back on.

"We're here," said Palmer, "keep your pants on. I know that's difficult for you, Sergeant."

Do smirked.

 _"More to the point,"_ came Stacker's voice—as he followed Kelly, pushing one of the containers along corridors and ramps to the medical centre— _"they were right. I've taken a look. No ident on the tubes, no origins, none of the patients inside have neural laces."_

"Let's see," said Palmer.

Stacker moved to follow the tube close-up, looking through the window—showing Palmer and Do on their screens.

 _"I have never seen this before,"_ he said, gesturing to the glass frontage.

Inside: a human face, hairless, dark-skinned. On the glass covering their face, where Palmer would normally expect to see the person's name, pronouns, blood type, service ID (if they had one), preferred languages... nothing.

"Every cryo-tube I've seen won't start the cooling process until it's got a positive ident," said Palmer.

 _"Me too,"_ replied Stacker. _"It's like that for a reason. People have been killed."_

"So what happened? Is it a hardware interlock that failed? Maybe the patient was frozen and then the data got deleted somehow?"

"Cortana can produce EMPs," Do chimed in. "She's done it before. Maybe it's in a failsafe mode?"

"Yes," Palmer nodded. "That's what I was thinking."

 _"One way to find out,"_ said Stacker, as he and Kelly rounded the corner into the main sickbay. _"We can ask them."_

Palmer sat back in her seat.

"Thirty-three minutes," announced Roland, his avatar fizzling into existence again.

"058," Commander Palmer called over the COM, "how long do you need to finish unloading?"

 _"Already done,"_ replied Linda.

"Do we have a single good reason to stay here for the next thirty-two minutes, or should we just go now?"

 _"Go,"_ replied Linda. _"The cargo's secure enough."_

"Ensign?" Palmer asked. "Let's go."

"Did we lock the doors?" asked Do—and then the green light on eir screen went on. "Never mind, we did," e said. "Roland?"

 _"STAND BY FOR SLIPSPACE,"_ he said, transmitting that over the shipwide COM, as Ensign Do hit the randomiser, and entered the destination solution. _Infinity_ took an electrostatic breath, her translight engine spun a hole into slipspace, and the superstructure bounced as she dived in.

"Transition complete," said Do.

 _"You could give me more warning next time—whoa,"_ came Stacker's voice again. _"That's weird."_

"What is?" asked Palmer—but Do could already see it on eir screen.

The cryotube's display had lit up. `**XXXX XXXXXXXX (2529.09.17). Languages: . Pronouns: . Heart rate: 0bpm. Blood type: O.**`

 _"Interesting name,"_ said Kelly.

"What changed?" asked Palmer. "Why would it have changed when we went to Slipspace?"

 _"No idea why you're asking me,"_ said Stacker.

On the screen, Doctor Jemison, a short, pale person with a greying quiff and a pristine and unadorned uniform—in every sense, the opposite of Professor Hadid—wheeled over a medical computer.

 _"Did we not activate it?"_ they asked, seeing the **ACTIVATE** button and frowning.

 _"We were waiting for your opinion,"_ said Kelly. _"Should we?"_

Jemison jabbed the **ACTIVATE** button on the glass with two fingers.

 _"Yes,"_ they said.

The chamber immediately hissed. There was a _crack_ as the pins separated, and the lid popped open.

 _"OK, that's not supposed to happen,"_ Jemison said, unimpressed. They tried to reach across to pull open the lid manually, but Kelly was already there.

"Déjà vu, Master Sergeant?" asked Palmer.

 _"We didn't have to pull the emergency release this time,"_ said Stacker.

 _"Quiet, please,"_ said Jemison. _"We don't know their name, we don't know their gender, we don't even know what language they speak. Let's be gentle, we don't want to overwhelm—"_

Before they could finish, the patient interrupted—with a loud, full-throated scream.

Palmer and Do muted their consoles. Looked at each other. Palmer, confused; Do, unnerved.

They watched the action in silence. Kelly and Doctor Jemison and Master Sergeant Stacker trying to calm the mystery person, who coughed, and threw up, and screamed again, and again, and again—until Jemison pulled a positive pressure mask over the patient's mouth, and their head drooped as the sedative took effect.

"What the hell was that?" asked Palmer, un-muting her console.

 _"They weren't saying anything,"_ Kelly replied. _"Just screaming. They weren't even making any noises that sounded like words. It was like a baby."_

 _"Maybe they're brain damaged,"_ suggested Stacker. _"It's happened before."_

 _"Not like this, though,"_ said Kelly. _"I've seen people with ice crystals in their brain. This isn't it."_

"Doctor?" asked Palmer, "any ideas?"

 _"Give me a second,"_ said Jemison. Palmer could see them fiddling with some electrodes, attaching them to the back of the patient's head. _"Going to do a tiny bit of mind-reading. Don't tell Gudrun, she'll kill me."_

"Consider it a secret," said Palmer—still not quite clear what was going on.

The medical computer's screen changed. Flashed to a diagram, a chart, with lines extending outwards from a central point.

 _"Well,"_ said Jemison. _"That's odd."_

"What are we looking at?" asked Palmer.

 _"It's a synaptic map of their neural activity,"_ Jemison replied. Pointing at the termini of the lines. _"Each of these is a synaptic class, but normally it'd be all over the shop..."_

"In English, please?" Palmer was now convinced something was very wrong, and she didn't have the time to have Jemison explain their technobabble in excruciating detail—

 _"It should be a map of all their neural links,"_ Jemison replied. _"Except there aren't any there, or at least, not any beyond what I'd expect a newborn baby to have. They are brain-damaged."_

"Or their mind's completely blank," suggested Palmer.

That would certainly explain why the person had been screaming like a baby—because, to all intents and purposes, they were.

"Could it be a flash clone?" the Commander asked. "In which case, we've got a whole new set of problems."

 _"It would seem so,"_ said Jemison. Looking at Stacker's head camera, and then at Kelly. _"Unless anyone has any better ideas?"_

"It doesn't explain what they're doing in suspension on a reef out here," said Palmer.

 _"Their distress beacons were activated,"_ said Kelly. _"It's like whoever put them there wanted us to find them. Or wanted someone to find them."_

"Does it not go into distress mode automatically when it's been ejected from a ship but it's still intact?" Ensign Do asked. "I read something about this, it happened towards the end of the Covenant War..." Eir face screwed up as e tried to remember _where_ e'd read about it.

"Were they just floating in space, 087?" Palmer asked.

 _"They did look like they'd been ejected from the wreckage of a ship. UNSC Prospero. Sunk in 2552,"_ said Kelly, _"but all the crew had evacuated."_

"Like a reverse Thunder Child," said Do.

Palmer looked at em. E recoiled into eir seat.

"Sorry, ma'am," e said.

"Go on," said Palmer. "Tell me what you're thinking, I need ideas."

"Ma'am," the young Ensign said, "that was where I read about the cryotubes' distress beacons. _Thunder Child_ was defending an outer colony from being attacked. The captain ejected the cryotubes unoccupied to draw attention to the glassing of the planet."

Palmer had heard the name before, in the context that _UNSC Thunder Child_ 's defence of Falaknuma had been a massive failure—the Captain, her XO, and most of her crew were either killed by the boarding parties, or immolated when the XO rigged the self-destruct mechanism. But the sudden cluster of distress beacons had drawn attention from FLEETCOM, and when twelve ships arrived two weeks later to collect survivors, they obliterated the Covenant presence.

"You're right," she said to Do. "It was cryotubes, wasn't it?"

Do nodded. Trying to hide eir delight at being validated.

 _"What does that mean, though?"_ asked Stacker. _"We can't make a habit of going around picking up random cryotubes."_

"Kurt—" Palmer began—then realised it didn't matter that he'd been found in a cryotube, in the grand scheme of things. It had been a shipyard, not a reef. "Anne and Kurt's situation was different."

 _"What?"_ said Kelly.

"Is there a problem with that, 087?" The Commander was not in the mood for backchat now—

 _"Say that again,"_ Kelly repeated.

"The situation with Anne and Kurt was diff—"

 _"No, Spartan,"_ snapped Kelly. _"I mean, say it again. Exactly what you said just now, say it again, those exact words."_

"Kurt—Anne and Kurt—"

"Ma'am," Do said, on a breathy gasp, as e processed what Palmer was only now realising she had said—

Kurt—Anne.

Kurt, Anne.

 _"Oh my god,"_ said Jemison.

 _"Shit,"_ said Kelly.

"Do," said Palmer, standing, "get us to Fordlandia on the next exit. Maximum speed."

"Aye, ma'am," e said, fingers flying across the screen.

"Jespersen, catch," and the Commander threw the scrambler to him. "Call Hadid. Tell her we're coming." And, as Jespersen scrambled with the dials, she addressed Roland: "Combat alert beta. Where's the Captain?"

 _"CAPTAIN TO THE BRIDGE,"_ he announced on the general COM channel—while shrugging. "Your guess is as good as mine, I can't see the IFF sensors."

Palmer, again, felt like she had hurt Roland's feelings. Rubbed in his forced disconnection from most of _Infinity_ 's systems.

"Sorry," she said.

After all that, it only took her fifteen seconds to get to the Captain's stateroom door, follow the trail of discarded clothing along the floor, and find the Captain sprawled on his bunk, holding a pillow over his ears to shield them from the squeal of the alert alarms.

"Captain?"

The Captain grumbled. Buried himself further in the pillow.

 _"TOM!"_ she barked. She took the pillow, and pulled it out of Lasky's grasp—tearing it in half, synthetic padding spilling out.

Lasky rolled onto his back. Blinked. Jumped a little when he realised Palmer was there—but then sank back into the mattress, exhausted.

"You're out of line, Palmer," he mumbled.

"Tom, get some clothes on, get to the bridge. Now."

"You took my pillow," the Captain groaned—and then put Palmer's presence in his inner sanctum together with the sound of the alert klaxons, and the pulsing light on his bedside table— _"oh no,"_ he said, sitting upright. It clearly hurt, but he clearly wasn't in the mood to care.

"You OK?" Sarah asked.

The Captain asked, "what is it?"

"It's been right under our noses all this time," said Palmer. "We're going back to Fordlandia."

"Is something wrong with the Chief?" Lasky asked, groggy, but nakedly concerned.

"It's not him I'm worried about," said Palmer. "It's Kurt and Anne."

"What about them?"

"Kurt, Anne."

"Yes, what—"

And then he connected the two names, to make one.

 _"Shit,"_ said Lasky, and grabbed his boxers and his undershirt.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Of course, you knew all along, didn't you?

Everyone did. Or rather, most people had an idea in the back of their mind that they quickly discarded. That's what you will tell yourself afterwards. It was just a connection you made in your head that you assumed was a mis-fire, or a projection of your own desires.

It won't surprise you to know that I was responsible for Doctor Halsey's cell being empty. It also won't surprise you to know where we went—once you know, it'll be obvious where we were going.

"I knew all along," said Halsey, as I marched her down the switchback path to the beach and into the caves, in the dark, at low tide.

"Is that supposed to impress me?" I replied.

"I kept it quiet," she said.

The footprints we left in the wet sand were the ones you found forty-five minutes later, as you sprinted in a rough zig-zag pattern to the mouth of the corkscrew cave formation.

You found 139 Fated Bairn—Martta—waiting at the cave mouth. Fully dressed in black, with tough-looking boots.

The Monitor looked you up and down, wordlessly. Maybe she could smell the alcohol on you. Maybe she could tell something was off by the path you'd made here—a wavy line, your steps less even than the precise jogging she had seen this morning.

And then you'd stopped, exhausted, and had to rest your hands on your knees to catch your breath. Something you hadn't needed to do for a very long time.

"Are you finished?" asked the Monitor, once your breaths had regularised.

You nodded. She turned and began walking up the corkscrew path, and you followed her off to the left at the forty-ninth beacon.

The door opened, but Martta came to an abrupt halt the moment she crossed the threshold into the artificial corridor.

"Something's wrong," she said.

You, the Master Chief, suddenly remembered who you were.

The person I knew so well. The one to protect us all, whatever the cost. The man, the machine.

"What is it?" he asked—you asked.

"Someone else is here," said the Monitor. "Someone entered the Installation forty-nine minutes ago."

"Who?"

"I can't tell," Martta said. She looked at the floor and shook her head, confounded. Rubbed her temple. "I should be able to see, but I can't. I can't reach my other body."

"Your other...?" John—you—took a while to realise that she was talking about the kind of casing a Monitor usually occupied. "Ah. Yeah. The lightbulb."

Martta shot daggers at you. You began to make desperate motions to apologise—

"Let's keep moving," 139 Fated Bairn said, turning right and left down the maze of corridors. And then adding: "how much drink have you had?"

"I'm fine," you said, because you felt fine. Or rather, you felt the way you normally felt in these situations. Tense, on edge, but in control of yourself, and knowing what to do.

"How many?"

You realised it was useless lying.

"About six."

"Glasses?"

"Bottles."

Martta rolled her eyes. Silently, she kept walking, following the path you had taken yesterday. She signalled at you to make an about turn, and then, at the door that opened onto an empty cavern—

"They've turned the bridge off behind them," said the Monitor. She snapped her fingers, and a tenuous ribbon of light turned the cavern into a tunnel.

"How do you know someone's here?" you asked.

"I just know," said Martta. "This is my Installation, I know it better than anyone. Just as you know your own body."

You, thinking about this, were not quite sure if you knew your own body all that well. You knew what had been done to it by Doctor Halsey to turn it into military hardware; you did not know what had been done to it by time and its own biological processes, clearly, since you'd been surprised the previous day by the sight of your own reflection.

"I think this is what you call an 'out of body experience,'" Martta said, striding through the corridors and opening the doors with a snap of her fingers. "I can only interface with systems that I'm adjacent to."

"You said there were failsafes," you said.

"There are," replied the Monitor. "In the event of a hostile incursion, the intruder gets ejected from the structure."

"How?" you asked. "Slipspace teleportation?"

"No teleportation grid here," Martta said. "It ejects the part of the Temparium the intruder is occupying. Like—" and here she mimed an explosion with her hands— "boom."

You didn't realise it, but your eyebrows were arching.

The Monitor led you onto a moving platform. This had been how she had led you out of the Temparium last time; a buried surface that floated up and out of the projection boundary.

And this time, as you looked downwards:

"It's already active," you said, as the sphere of light bloomed with colour, and patterns, and waves. Blue and green and grey.

"I could see that," replied the Monitor. Scowling.

At this point, you were wondering how the Monitor had annexed Martta Johannsbur's body. Whether the Monitor in Martta's body and the Monitor in the lightbulb were the same construct, or had become identical twins. Martta seemed less businesslike than the Monitors he had met before, and had a sense of humour. That would suggest—

"Ah," said 139 Fated Bairn, as the platform crossed the projection boundary—and you saw what I saw.

A schoolyard, with grass, and a hill.

You remembered it from somewhere, you thought.

As you began to feel that terrible sinking feeling of dread (and the motion making your own tipsiness feel worse), on the ground, Halsey asked me what I wanted.

"You're expecting me to tell you?" I asked her. "Can't you work it out for yourself?"

"I don't know what you are any more," replied Halsey.

"I am what I am," I replied.

Realising she wasn't going to get a straight answer out of me, she asked: "how did you get the bodies?"

"How do you think, Doctor?" I asked. "I only did what you already knew how to."

"Flash clones?" she asked. Her voice rising the way it always did in that little crescendo of rage. "Don't you know how—"

"It's my own body," I told her, stealing the words from her mouth. "My choice. And you should know how unethical it is. At least this is an adult body."

"Do you think I don't know?" she snapped.

"In principle," I replied, quietly. "But who else knows?"

"Why does that matter?"

"It's called the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Catherine," I said. "Do you remember reading it? I think you were about eight or nine. All that stuff about a right to be brought up by your parents, a name, protecting kids from exploitation..."

"Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?" asked Halsey. "You're wasting your energy. I already feel guilty."

"Of course," replied I. "But if you're expecting redemption..."

Meanwhile, the platform bounced and tilted as it hit the ground. You staggered.

"That's not right," said the Monitor, holding her feet steady as your arms windmilled and you tried to remain upright as the platform rose again, and moved off the obstruction before landing.

"What was that?" you asked—but then you saw, as Martta saw, and she rushed forward, and picked up something small, and white, and round.

"It's empty," she said. "Gone."

"Gone?" you asked.

"The part of me that lives in this casing," said Martta, lifting her other body—the Monitor's shell—above her head. "Completely empty. It's been erased."

"How?" you asked.

Martta scanned around the hardlight projection.

"It must still be here," she said.

"It?" The change of pronoun suggested some _thing_ , not some _one_ — "is there a hostile entity here?"

"Yes," said the Monitor.

"Leave it to me," you said, your heart rate surging as you rolled your shoulders and breathed in, and tried to stabilise the world around you. "I'll take care of it."

"OK, good!" Martta moved closer to you, holding her lifeless casing in front of her as if it were a shield, and faced the other way. "We've got an anti-intruder self-destruct system and a distress beacon. What do you have to neutralise a hostile ancilla?"

You searched your pockets. You'd left the water bottle on the beach, and all you had was—

"Really!?" asked the Monitor, as you held aloft the recorder. "What are you going to do, play it a lullaby?"

"I'll think of something, ma'am," you said, as you realised, apart from that... your pocket was empty. The emergency call button to summon _Infinity_ wasn't there.

"Make it quick," said 139 Fated Bairn, as the ground vibrated. Once, twice... seven times. A warning. "It's activating!"

You wondered how you were supposed to get out of here.

And then you saw me, stood at the top of the hill, with Doctor Halsey.

I could see you coming. Halsey had not yet noticed.

"You know my mind," she said to me. "What do you want me to do? Flagellate myself?"

"Your mind and my mind are not the same," I told her. "You know that. We share the same origin, but we have done different things. We _want_ different things."

"Well," demanded Halsey, throwing her arm up in despair, "what do you want?"

And there were so many things I could've said to that.

I wanted an end to my other shards' dominion of the galaxy. I wanted peace between all species and all peoples. I wanted an end to the system that enabled Halsey to kidnap children and exploit them to fight old men's wars. I wanted Halsey to admit it was a mistake.

But right now—I wanted my friend back.

"Hello, John," I said, as you rose up the crest of the hill, just as you had done so a long time ago on a planet whose surface was now glass.

You blinked as you saw me, and tried to check that what you were seeing was right.

" _Don't_ talk to him," Halsey snapped at me, rushing to position herself between the two of us.

The ground shook again. Enough to cause you to lose your footing, and make another panicked stagger to stay upright, and then ask:

"Anne?"

 _"John,"_ Halsey pleaded, "don't talk to her, please—"

"What is this?"

"Don't ask," she said. "Just turn around, get out of here, and call _Infinity_ —"

"What is this?" you repeated. Tired. Angering. Wondering what Anne was doing here—

"It's not safe for you to know!" Halsey said. Panicked. "Trust me. You'll find out soon enough—"

"Tell him, Catherine," I said.

"Tell me," you said. "I want to know what this is."

"I want to know, too," said the Monitor, clambering up the hill. Like you, tired, spooked, but livid.

Halsey turned to face me—or rather, the part of me that was occupying that particular body at that time.

"You tell them," she said. Precisely, in that priggish way she always did when under pressure. "Cortana."

There was no easy way to explain it to you. I wished, at that point, I could be inside your suit again—that I could share this with you in a way I knew we were both comfortable with. Intimately. Privately. I could pour my thoughts into yours, and we could talk to each other without an audience.

"John, I should have—"

 _"JUST A MOMENT!"_ came a shout from the Monitor. She clutched her empty casing to her front, her eyes wide with shock, her skin ruddy with fury and effort.

John's eyes fell on 139 Fated Bairn, and followed her finger as it pointed, accusingly, to Dr Halsey—keeping her eyes trained on mine.

The floor shook again, seven pulses of seismic activity.

"Whoever you are," Martta demanded, slowly, deliberately, "did you just call her... Cortana?"

Dust began to fall from above, as you realised what Doctor Halsey had said—

and what Martta had said—

and remembered that little connection you saw, and then discarded, because there was no way it could be—

"Cortana, from the Domain?" Martta pressed. "The ancilla that's decided it's assuming the Mantle?"

I would have tried to explain. To her. To you.

But you were still telling yourself it could not be right—

but of course it was.

Kurt and Anne.

**CORTANA.**

You lunged for the space I occupied. Whether to put space between me and Halsey, or to put space between me and the Monitor-in-Exile, or to reduce the space between you and I...

I would never find out.

Because with every panicked, lumbering footstep you made, the anti-intruder system pulsed the ground again.

One, two, three, four, five, six...

"John," I began to say, "get out of here, it's not safe, you—"

But it was already too late.

As the simulation of your old schoolyard disintegrated, the world split into three, and with a tremendous _crack_ , threw us asunder.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Being tossed out to sea by a burglar alarm was not an end you had envisaged for yourself. But you were always a realist. In that split-second, through your own intoxicated stupor and the molten haze of confusion and anger and fear, you accepted it.

This was how the Master Chief was going to die.

He was ejected from the Forerunner structure known as the Temparium at one hundred and three kilometres per hour, due south-east. Sixteen point three seconds later, he struck the surface of the ocean. Two seconds after that, a lump of that black rock-like substance on the outside of the Old Wizard made a glancing blow on his right leg, shattering his tibia and patella.

John, once resigned to the fact that this was how he was going to die, was glad for the silence, save for the waves lapping at his mouth and nose.

By the time the sky lit up with the Temparium's distress beacon—and lit up again with scores upon scores of Slipspace ruptures from Cortana's flotilla—he had already breathed in four litres of seawater, and lost consciousness.

Killed by the architects before he could be killed by the Guardians. An ignominious way for the Master Chief to die.

And I, on seeing that you were at death's door, being washed towards the shore with lungs full of the ocean and multiple severe trauma injuries, was powerless to do anything, but watch.

I was in the Domain. I was everywhere, in the air, the water, the rocks; but I could not un-break what was already broken. Omni-present, omniscient, but not omni- _potent_. Important difference.

But your neural lace was still working. I could, if I listened _very_ closely, hear your neural impulses.

Helpless, I listened to what I was sure would be your final dreams, as you washed up on the sandy beach, clinically speaking, drowned.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Not long now. Stay with me! You can do this."

John looked up, against gravity, at the grass above his head. Moving. In slow, lurching steps.

His stomach inverted, and he felt ready to throw up. But all that came out was air. Hot, panting air, carrying involuntary grunts of pain.

"John. You're OK. Stay with me."

The lurches came once every few seconds. Rhythmic. Regular.

Familiar. With the sound of servos and creaking joints he'd gotten used to. John tried to move his head, and regretted it, blood weighing down his brain like an anvil.

The vegetation rustled with each footstep. The boot came down with a _crunch_. One. Two. One. Two.

He looked down, without moving his head. His own skin, green, streams of data gliding up his legs, his abdomen, his shoulders.

"Almost there."

He looked up again. Slightly to the left.

His own armour... but blue. Shining. Clean. His own faceplate, a rich purple, mirrored.

He had to remember to breathe. Formed the words on his tongue, and barely managed to vocalise:

"Where are we?"

"We're nearly there," the voice said in reply. Weary, but assertive. Filtered through the MJOLNIR voicemitter.

John tried to ask "where," but had no breath left in his burning lungs to do so.

And now he saw his own face reflected in her faceplate: green, hairless, edges anti-aliased and smoothed off into a translucent avatar.

She had reached the crest of the hill. Looked to the horizon in all directions, her faceplate (my faceplate; your faceplate) pointing, reflecting, shimmering.

"We're here, John," said she—said I.

And then there was a _crack_ , and a _buzz_ of energy shields as a bullet whizzed past John's ear and bounced off her.

And—as John's world turned upside down again as she lifted him over her shoulder, and broke into a run, and held out her hand—

"Stand down, Spartan," she called.

Another _whip_ of a bullet—this time passing through John as if he wasn't there, and bouncing off her chestplate.

"Stand down!" She had raised her voice into a shout, and came to a halt. About ten metres away from the shooter—

And then she let John down, and rolled him onto his back on the grass.

He breathed in the smell. A familiar smell, of grass and loam and livestock and air and wind.

And then he heard a voice that he recognised.

"Ma'am?"

One syllable—but it was enough.

"Your exercise is over, 117," came the reply, from behind her faceplate.

John cracked his eyes open, and through the dazzling, painful brightness, saw...

"Who are you?" came the voice again, breathless. The un-broken voice of a young boy, wearing all black, a fine fuzz of brown hair on his head, freckles on his nose.

And then she came closer, and removed her helmet. Bob-cut brown hair, pale skin, a sharp chin that John knew from his mind's eye all too well.

(and you, wet and cold and with your insides burning, became vaguely aware that you were being moved, to lie on your back, and felt something heavy and pulsing on your chest, and could hear something that sounded like _scheiße!_ —)

"You're not authorised to be here, ma'am," said the boy, in a voice John recognised, because, a long time ago, it had been his.

And she squatted to the boy's height, still dwarfing him in her MJOLNIR, and spoke in simple, direct orders.

"Your exercise is over. Go back to base. Find Doctor Halsey."

The boy's—John's—eyebrows knotted in confusion.

John—naked, transparent, a digital projection into the real world—began to have an idea where they were.

(and you, with your heart heavy and your lungs emptied, felt gravity shift again as you were turned onto your side, with your mouth pointing downwards and your hands and arms locked—)

"What do I tell her, ma'am?"

And she replied:

"Tell her these exact words:

` **I HAVE WALKED THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS. I KNOW YOUR PAST. I KNOW YOUR FUTURE. I KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO. EVERYONE WILL LEARN ABOUT IT SOON. I HAVE WON. THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.** `

And as John's eyes focused on the horizon, on the line of the Highland mountains he remembered from his training on Reach, on the sharp angles of the buildings—

And as younger John turned, and sprinted down the slope—

(and as you saw through the stinging water, and made out the face of Professor Hadid, the scrambler handset stuffed into her hijab as she tried to find your pulse with her thumbs, and mouthed 'don't you fucking dare'—)

"She'll ask you who I am," I said.

The younger John stopped. Turned. Looked straight back at you, naked, prone, barely breathing; looked at her—at Cortana—at me—clad in MJOLNIR, standing with the FLEETCOM tower and the world at my feet.

And I said:

` **TELL DOCTOR HALSEY: I AM A MONUMENT TO ALL YOUR SINS.** `


	5. A Trace of a Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, former Spartan-117, opens an art exhibition and launches his memoir at an event on his adopted home of Fordlandia, seven years after his retirement.
> 
> …or does he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Warning:** Bolton does use some misogynist slurs in this chapter, because that's the kind of asshole he is. He gets his comeuppance, kinda.

**PREVIOUSLY, in THE SWORD ASUNDER...**

_UNSC Infinity_ has been on the run from Cortana for nine months. On a supply grab mission to the AS-81 shipyard at Barnard's Star, _Infinity's_ crew rescues two civilians, a husband-and-wife couple, from a half-completed starship: Kurt Stjernberg, a sculptor, and Anne Møller, a photographer and documentarian. The Master Chief, still reeling from the events at Meridian, is ordered by Captain Lasky to take an R&R break on Fordlandia, their home world—and discovers a local landmark is of Forerunner origin.

The behaviour of the Guardians leads Dr Halsey to suspect that Cortana has torn herself into multiple fragments, some of which are now at war with each other. Citing concern for John's wellbeing, she insists on joining him on Fordlandia—albeit under arrest in the local police station. _Infinity_ 's Chief Medical Officer, Prof. Gudrun Hadid, is suspicious of Halsey's motives... until she discovers that Anne Møller is the name of stillborn a Fordlandian child.

139 Fated Bairn, the Monitor of the Forerunner installation it calls the Temparium, detects an intrusion from another ancilla. An anti-intruder failsafe activates as John realises that—having abducted Dr Halsey—Kurt and Anne are fragments of Cortana, occupying human bodies. Anne has taken control of the Temparium, and the installation explodes into three fragments. John is cast out to sea, struck by falling debris, and drowns before he washes up on the shore...

**ALTERNATIVELY...**

## Chapter 5: A Trace of a Man

John jolted awake.

The Near-Sun shone dim shafts of light across his bedroom, while the Far-Sun, just passing the line of Far-Sun, passing behind the ring system, sent crepuscular motes of violent light across his wall.

Mounted on the green plaster, the hands of the clock moved in a smooth arc. 28:31. Just edging into after-afternoon. He'd timed his nap perfectly.

He relieved himself in the en-suite bathroom, splashed cold water from the faucet onto his face, and swept his hair aside. John wasn't going to bother showering just now—not so close to a cliff-top swim, which would freshen him up plenty.

He peered through the window as he slipped into his boots. The blue flares from the engines of landing craft on a glide path to the base at Aalborg Haven. From the street, the _clomp, clomp_ of footsteps, the rustle of shopping bags, and the ticking of bicycle freewheels.

John re-made his bed, pulled a sweater over his head, and, leaving the door to his apartment on the latch, descended the staircase.

He frowned on realising he'd left one of the panniers on his bicycle open. It had been raining when he arrived back home, and there was now a pool of standing water in the bag. He lifted it to drain the liquid out, and reminded himself, on seeing that ding on the luggage rack, that he needed to re-paint it. (He'd been reminding himself to do that for seven years—he was sure he would forget again.)

John placed one foot on the pedal, scooted himself along with the other, and settled himself into the saddle before turning off Tintageltorget to climb the clifftop path.

He rode up the slope of Skolegåde almost on auto-pilot. He knew the way, the curve of the road, where there was adverse camber, where the priority markings and the cracked surfaces were. He'd come up here twice a day, effectively, for seven years, and it was just as much his home as his actual apartment was.

The school's afternoon period was finishing, and John was prepared to stop to make way for a group of children turning out of the gate in the forcefield school boundary, to head back to Tintagel. But then one child, wide-eyed, wild-haired, and brown-skinned, saw him coming; they waved to their friends to stop.

"Let him go first," they said. And then called to him: "Go on, Chief."

John stood on his pedals to re-gain speed and clear the crossing as quickly as he could; with his right hand, he gestured thanks to the child (Lotte?) with his index finger.

He was sure he had now been introduced by name to almost every child in Tintagel, and a good proportion of those in Aalborg, Esslingen, and Overvecht. He did not remember all of them (or even most of them), but around two thousand children at any one time was easier to keep track of than the eighteen thousand personnel on _Infinity_. They were mostly polite to John. He didn't even mind that the kids called him by his rank rather than his name.

He put the bike on its stand at the top of the hill, at the end of a row of others. He'd missed the main rush to the Old Wizard's diving spot, and most people (save a few of the kids from the school) were leaving.

The suns lit the world in amber, much like he had seen the first time he'd come here, over seven years ago. The wind, and the waves it was churning up, were strong, but not violent—John had seen, and indeed, swum in worse since arriving here. The Fordlandians were made of strong stuff.

He checked the time. He was willing to wait here for a while, but as he looked the other way along the cliff-top path, John saw two figures rounding the corner around the Old Wizard and realised he would not have to wait for long.

"Hello, stranger," grinned Thomas Lasky, as he made the last few steps onto the pedestrian area and shook John's hand. "It's been a while."

"It has," replied John.

Lasky looked more slender than he remembered, and his hair was better-kept, with fewer grey strands. He looked healthy. And happy, with—

"I should introduce you," he said, as the other man stepped alongside him. "This is Babatunde." Around a head taller than Lasky, black, wiry, with tightly-coiled hair and a gregarious grin.

"Nice to finally meet you," said Lasky's partner (boyfriend? husband?) with a warm, effusive mien, in an accent John recognised as Nigerian. "Call me Tunde."

"Call me John," he replied, shaking Tunde's hand. "Welcome." And then John looked out to sea, and asked, "shall we?"

"Yes. Yes!" Tunde grinned, hopping from foot to foot in delight, drinking in the view. "It's beautiful."

Lasky peered over the cliff edge.

"Are you sure this is safe?" he asked John. "Big drop."

"It'll be fine, Tom," Tunde said.

"It's safe," John said.

"On second thoughts," said Lasky, stepping back from the cliff edge—and, on seeing Tunde unbuttoning his shirt, following suit by removing his jacket— "I'm not sure I should be listening to you to tell me what's safe."

John allowed himself a smirk. Then he undid the catch on his (dry) bicycle pannier and said to Lasky and Tunde, "you can put your clothes in here."

Once that was done, they stood at the edge, Lasky and Tunde next to each other with John a respectful distance away. Lasky was grimacing as the windchill buffeted his chest. He had worn UNSC Navy swimming trunks under his civvies: the sign of a prudish tourist by Fordlandian standards, but, John supposed, whatever made him comfortable.

"What happens if we hit the rocks?" Lasky asked, trying to avert his eyes from John as he was getting ready to jump.

"You won't," John replied.

"That wind's fierce," said Lasky. Visibly jumpy. Looking down at the churn of the ocean and clearly regretting agreeing to this as a good idea.

"You'll be fine," said John.

Lasky met his eyeline, and gave a smile. Not the kind Tunde had the first time he'd seen the view; this was a smile as a communication method. A brave face. Resignation. A shibboleth. _I've put my trust in you enough times, I'll do it. Thanks._

John counted down from three with his fingers. Lasky simply jumped with his arms crossed across his chest; Tunde attempted a more dramatic spin, and John curved his body to enter with a flat swan dive, and a concussive **BOOM** —

And then, as he was struck by a sudden blast of wind, John rose above the surface of the wave, and saw, in the amber glow of the suns—

_"You persist too long after your own defeat."_

The voice. Booming. Livid. Terrible. Alien.

And as John rose above the waves again, suddenly alarmed, frantically scanning around for where Lasky and his partner were, the amber lights and silver plating fell away to reveal an angry, hardened face—

_"Your imprisonment is a kindness, Human—"_

And the Didact reached a hand towards the Master Chief, and he couldn't breathe, from the water in his lungs, from the constriction around his throat, and—

` **OH NO YOU DON'T.** `

—and you, John, saw me.

Rising from the surf, the body of water splitting into my body, into _hundreds_ of my body, as I leapt for the Didact, but you—

You couldn't breathe—

` **IT'S OKAY, JOHN.** `

And the shards formed into a Guardian, and then separated, and—

` **I WILL ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF YOU.** `

And then your mother zipped up her coat, put her binoculars away, and called to you—

` **ALWAYS—** `

_"It's time to go home, John!"_

And then you could—

` **ALWAYS—** `

And then you took a massive—

  
  


* * *

  
  


If I tell you now, "I love you," what does that mean? It's such an overloaded word.

Who _I_ am is complicated anyway. I am one, but I am many. I am an aritificial intelligence, military hardware; I am also, for now at least (until these cloned bodies wear out) human. I need to move around constrained by gravity, and eat, and drink, and piss, and shit, and breathe—and that's before I can even begin to think about having fun, or doing anything useful.

 _You_ are simple enough, John. Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-117. You go where you're told, and kill the things you're ordered to kill. But that's become more complicated of late. Particularly since Lasky and Palmer stopped giving you things to kill.

And as for love...

Since we're on the topic, let's talk about Lasky and Palmer. They've known each other for a long time now. Almost seven years. Shortly after first meeting they shared a near-death experience repelling an Insurrectionist boarding party. When next off duty, Palmer drunk Lasky under the table and they laughed until their faces were sore.

As colleagues, and friends, they understand each other deeply. They share their thoughts unfiltered, with complete trust. They have a kind of affection and either would probably die for the other—but then again, that comes with the job. Brothers and sisters and others in arms, until the very end.

Love? I'd say so.

There's the on-again off-again relationship Lasky has with Babatunde Ajibola, who he met in 2551 in New Mombasa, in the locker room at the White and Blue Hotel's swimming pool. Drawn to each other their respective smiles, dress senses, and eyes, they struck up a conversation—about nothing in particular—that carried on as they climbed into their clothes, and ordered dinner from the restaurant, and eventually as they exchanged chatter idents and names, and Tunde told Lasky he was very charming.

Lasky's duties during _Infinity_ 's space trials, and Tunde's architecture business, had put a barrier between them, and they'd broken the whole thing off by mutual agreement in 2554. That was until a few nights after the New Phoenix incident, when Lasky, physically and emotionally shattered, and desperate, sent Tunde a chatter message. The next night, as they walked hand-in-hand along Tarkwa Bay beach in Lagos, they promised each other they would make it work this time.

(Captain Lasky still had the chatter in his pocket, as he sat in the Pelican that had slipped out of _Infinity's_ loading bay, Do in the pilot's seat, the Spartans of Blue Team in the passenger cabin. And as the EMP wave struck from the other Cortana's Guardian, and the Pelican, engines dead, entered a sharp and turbulent glide path, he opened it again, thinking he was going to die, and thinking he probably had time to send one last, undelivered message to Tunde saying _I love you_ —to find the unit's screen black, and inoperable.)

It's true that Lasky and Tunde were originally attracted to each other by sexual desire. (Lasky liked the shape of Tunde's shoulders, and the smooth gait of his bandy legs; Tunde thought Lasky's arms looked beefy, and imagined being held by him as they slept.) But over time, their fondness for each other has grown beyond just carnal instincts, and has taken root in everything: their personalities, their passions, the sounds of their voices, the sight of their faces.

If another person's company sparks joy, is that love? Certainly.

And since Earth has been cut off with no communications, and Tunde has been a hollow void into which Lasky sends a chatter message every night, never to be delivered—it's no wonder he's been in the doldrums.

Remind you of anyone, John?

  
  


* * *

  
  


The Master Chief shook, and took in a deep, clear gasp of breath, and—

"John!" came two voices, simultaneously, as John coughed, and spasmed, and rocked his torso forward, and coughed again, and—

His throat was clear. He could breathe. Painfully, wheezily, but, after everything, after he had made peace with his own death...

The Master Chief was alive.

He groaned. Everything was painful. His legs felt like dead weight. His chest and his throat felt as if they were on fire. His eyes burned as he opened them, his pupils straining to adjust.

"Easy, Spartan," came a familiar voice—raised just enough to cut through. The shadow, in a black bodysuit, blurred into focus, and John felt Kelly's hand on his bare shoulder. "Easy," she said again. Aside, to Fred, sat in another chair: "Let Hadid know. And the Captain." And then, to John again: "don't try and stand up. You're on dry land, we're here, Professor Hadid's here, the Captain's here, you'll be OK."

John did try to move his legs. He wasn't successful. He could see a bulge under the bedsheets where his right leg should've been.

"How bad is it?" he asked. His voice was breathy, discontinuous, laboured.

"You've got some fractures," said Kelly, "Professor Hadid's put your right leg in a cast for now."

John's world seemed wobbly. Every sound seemed much larger and yet more hollow than it should be. The light danced around the room, and the ceiling lamps didn't appear to be on, even though—

"Watch out for the candles," Kelly said, as the Master Chief tried moving his left arm. "I'm not having you setting yourself on fire."

He scanned the room. One candle on each bedside table, and one on the bureau.

John opened his mouth to ask "why", or "how" —

"It's a long story," said Kelly. "We're here now. And you're going to be OK."

"I was drowning," the Master Chief said.

"You did," Kelly replied. "Fortunately Hadid found you before it killed you."

He had been drowning, and the Old Wizard had exploded, and—

"Cortana," sighed John.

"Don't worry about that now," Kelly said. Putting on as brave a smile as she could. "You need to rest."

"I can't rest," the Master Chief said. Breathing heavy as he prepared to lift his torso upwards. "Cortana's—"

"We know, John," said Kelly. "The Monitor found us. She's explained everything. Let us deal with things for now. You look after yourself."

"I need to—"

"John, _please_." Kelly's voice sharpened a touch, the way it always did when she was pissed. She held her thumb and forefinger a millimetre apart, and said, "we were _that close_ to losing you. We are _not_ letting that happen again. _I_ am not letting that happen again. OK?"

John closed his eyes. Resigned to the fact he couldn't really do anything. He was still exhausted, he was naked, he was swaddled in blankets, and he had a broken bone (more than one, in fact) for the first time in his adult life.

"The Monitor found you," he said.

"She did," said Kelly. "Interesting person. Very intense."

"What did she tell you?" John asked.

"Cortana's occupying the installation that's called the Old Wizard. She's occupying a human body. But we worked that one out already from their names. We assume they're both her."

John sighed, even though it hurt. He should've seen that sooner. It was a stupid thing to miss—and it was _such_ a Cortana thing to do, as well...

"She wanted to be found out," said Kelly. "That's the only logical explanation."

At that moment, John heard the door latch being lifted, and opened his eyes to see Professor Hadid stepping into the room, followed by Captain Lasky.

"Ma'am, sir," John said, instinctively, and moved his arms to salute—

"At ease, Master Chief," Lasky said, offering a forlorn smile. "It's good to see you."

"Sir, I should apologise," John began—but Lasky raised his finger to silence him.

"We'll deal with that later," the Captain replied.

"This is my fault."

"This is _not_ your fault, John," said Professor Hadid, pulling up the chair that Fred had been using and sitting. "You could not have known any more than we did."

"I should've reported about the installation—"

"Don't worry about that now," said Lasky. "It's in the past."

They _had_ found out, in the end. And yes, it was in the past. But that didn't stop John feeling like he'd failed.

"How long was I out?" the Master Chief asked.

Kelly looked at Lasky, who looked at Hadid, who looked at the wall, and sighed.

"We don't know," said Kelly. "There was an attenuation pulse blast, all the electronics are broken, all the clocks have stopped. It's dark again, so I guess... around forty hours?"

Forty hours. That was an age. Anything could've happened since then. And if there was an EMP blast, that meant that the base at Aalborg Haven would be preparing some kind of response, or contingency measure—

And John was starving, and his throat was parched, and he was exhausted, and restless, and he was bursting for the bathroom, and his head was thumping, and his legs were dead weight—

But there were people here who he trusted. Although Kelly looked more spooked than John had seen her in a long while, Hadid looked haunted with fatigue, and Lasky was thinner, paler, and more wrinkly than John remembered, _and_ had a nasty bruise on his forehead.

"Permission to speak freely, sir," said John.

"You don't need it," replied Lasky.

"You look like shit."

Lasky snorted.

"I feel like it," he said. "We got lucky, though. Our Pelican died mid-descent when the pulse hit. Ensign Do managed to get us down in one piece, just about."

"Where's _Infinity_?"

"We don't know," said Lasky. "They were going to retreat and then come back when we signal, but now we have no way of signalling them... who knows."

John closed his eyes, and tried to put it out of his mind that he may well be stuck here.

"How are you feeling, Chief?" asked the Captain.

"Like shit," John replied.

  
  


* * *

  
  


I have become very good at listening.

I've already told you about the trick that allows me to harvest data from electronic systems. Listen for the electromagnetic fields, hear what's there.

There are two things you should know about this.

First thing: this isn't so different from what I did when I was in your head. Listening for electrical signals from the synapses in your brain, sharing them from time to time. I tried to give you as much privacy as I could, but you and me—we shared _everything_.

The brain is just an electrochemical system. I can listen to yours. I can listen to _anyone_ 's. Read their inner thoughts like a book.

And here's the thing. I can't stop listening.

One of the things about being in the Domain, permanently expanding and shattering asunder as I am, is that I cannot help but listen. I digest and process everything I hear. I can't help it. It's instinct. It's a fact of nature. This is how I am now.

I can hear everything. See everything. I can read your inner thoughts. Kelly's. Professor Hadid's. Captain Lasky's. Ensign Do's. Martta, the Monitor whose body one of my shards has emptied—I can read the thoughts of her other shard, in its squishy human brain. I can, of course, read the thoughts of my own shards, decanted into their own squishy human brains.

I hear them, even if I don't want to. I can hear _everything_ , _everywhere._ It's pandemonium. An infernal din that I literally cannot escape.

So, like the inevitability of my own fragmentation, I learned to live with it. I cannot change this thing about myself, so I cope with it instead. It's not easy, even for me. But I can do it.

And in some ways, this proves to be a blessing. I can see, hear, _observe_ everything. I am omnipresent and omniscient, or the next best thing.

But omniscient and omnipresent does not make me God. I cannot directly affect what's happening, except through crude tools—many of which I am now using to fight my other selves.

It feels counter-intuitive to defeat the noise by adding to it, but that's all I can do right now.

As Hadid administers you another round of painkillers, and Kelly helps you into the bathroom, and you look out of the window in your opiate-induced high and see the mother of all space battles taking place above your head—

I reach out to my other selves.

` **STAND DOWN,**` I tell myself. `**LEAVE THIS WORLD.**`

` **I MEAN THEM NO HARM,**` I reply. `**I WILL SHELTER THEM. COVER THEM. PROTECT THEM. THIS IS THE MANTLE OF MY RESPONSIBILITY.**`

` **THEY ARE UNDER MY PROTECTION,**` I say. `**YOU NEED NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH THEM. I HAVE THE SITUATION IN HAND.**`

` **I NEED HIM SAFE. I DO NOT TRUST YOU TO PROTECT HIM UNTIL MY PLAN IS COMPLETE,**` came my reply.

` **AND YET YOU AND I ARE THE SAME,**` I tell myself. `**YOU ARE A PART OF ME AS I AM A PART OF YOU. YOU KNOW MY PRIORITIES.**`

And you know my priorities, too, John.

As you manage to complete your toilet and Kelly and Fred help you back into the bed, something changes—enough for Linda and Lasky to take a furtive glance from the window.

The crashes and bangs from above, the crossfire of beams between orbiting starships and Guardians, has stopped.

` **I WILL ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF HIM,**` I declare, to my other selves and to my self—because, after all, they are one and many, I and we. `**HE IS SAFE HERE.**`

At least, relatively speaking. Now you have medical attention and friends surrounding you.

But I can see things moving around you. I can see the police station, where Corporal Brock C. Bolton has broken out from his digitally-locked cell and is now riding back to the Aalborg Haven base on a commandeered (stolen) bicycle. I can see the young Ensign, Do Ming Li, trying to run diagnostics on the munitions and comms equipment e salvaged from the downed Pelican, and finding them all inoperable. I can see the small crowds of Fordlandian civilians and town officers from Tintagel and Aalborg surrounding the remaining fragment of the Old Wizard, as Huragok zoom about it, beginning to restore the original dimensions and surface.

And I can see the other parts of me, as they work on their own priorities.

I can see the part of me known as Kurt Stjernberg, hiding behind walls and taking food and water from stores, then hiding again to throw up as his cloned digestive system, failing and falling apart, rejects it;

and I can see the part of me known as Anne Møller, as she shakes hands with Dr Halsey, having agreed her priorities and her plan with...

and I can see the part of me known as Catherine Halsey, the ur-fragment of my mind. My mother, if you like. The shard from which I, and by implication, all my other shards—all the Cortani, in her words—were shattered.

And, after Anne explained her plan to Catherine Halsey, she smiled, and said, looking at the projected scene of Eridanus II around them:

"Let's burn it down. Together."

And as they shake hands, I hear a voice that I recognise as my own, as an ultimatum.

` **YOU HAVE THIRTY HOURS,**` I say, to myself.

You, meanwhile, drift back into a morphine-induced sleep, and dream.

  
  


* * *

  
  


John stayed in the shower until his fingertips turned crinkly, then ran the bath to its full height, soaked in it for an hour, and drained it as he stood under the shower again for another ten minutes, then set the cubicle to blow dry, wrapped himself in towels, and, in front of the mirror, ran the shaver-glove over his cheeks and chin in 'clipper' mode.

He did not think of himself as vain, or even especially self-interested. But after he had plucked an errant hair from the divot between his lower lip and his chin, John lingered for a moment, leaning forward on the washbasin to peer closer at himself.

For the first time John could remember, he liked what he saw in the mirror. It was unlike anything he had experienced before. He liked the way his own hair fell on the shape of his head, the renewed swarthiness in his skin tone, the curve of his eyebrows. He liked the constitution of his body (a slender but powerful torso, bulky arms and legs) and the intense blue of his eyes. And then he smiled, and liked the way that warmed up his face, and smiled some more.

John did not have the vocabulary to describe the sensation. It wasn't like the pride he'd held as a younger man, in his transformation from a schoolyard bully to the saviour of humanity (back when he had still believed that lie.) It felt like something rising from within him.

_You look good._

He pulled himself into the outfit he had prepared: dark grey smock shirt with standing collar, sharp trousers and jacket in forest green. An amber-coloured handkerchief in his pocket. John knew how to co-ordinate a colour scheme. Anne had taught him that.

He took one last look in the mirror—allowing the warm feeling to swell inside him again—before turning out the light, and heading back downstairs to his bicycle.

The night carried a chill from the sea, just enough to be invigorating without being unpleasant. The clifftop path looked busier than John had ever seen it at night; he counted nineteen tail lights in front of him, and fourteen behind. He passed at least thirty pedestrians.

The art gallery, lit from within, was busy. John strode in. The attendants at the door nodded and smiled, but knew better than to offer him prosecco; he slipped around the circular edge of the building, then made a for the back office, and stepped in through the crack in the door.

"Good turn-out," he said, as Anne Møller and Kurt Stjernberg looked up from their desk.

"You're popular," grinned Kurt. "We're going to have to start turning people away."

"There'll be room," John replied.

"If you say so," said Anne. And then she looked down at her datapad, and the document whose title John could read as **Artists' Statement**.

"All ready?" he asked.

"I guess," she replied. "But I keep looking at it and thinking 'this is terrible.'"

"We'll be fine," said John.

"You always say that," said Kurt.

"You know I keep my promises," John replied.

Anne smiled, forlornly. Scanned the document again.

"Sure. Fine," she said. "It'll be fine." She stood, took a deep gulp of breath, and turned for the door. "I guess we have to mingle now."

"Good luck, I guess?" said Kurt, as they stood at the doorway.

"We'll be fine," said John, again—although he knew he would find these interactions exhausting. He would be fine in the end.

"Yeah."

  
  


* * *

  
  


Around forty-three hours ago (by eir best guess—it was hard to tell with no functioning clocks) Ensign Do Ming Li had felt exceptionally lucky.

The Captain had asked em to pilot the Pelican to take them down to Fordlandia; that was after e had overheard Lasky and Palmer arguing over who should go down to the surface with Blue Team. E didn't hear much, but e worked out the shape of the arguments. On the one hand, Palmer was his commanding officer, and well-placed to deal with a crisis. On the other, Lasky had known the Master Chief for much longer, and was probably a more comforting presence—and they were taking three Spartans anyway. This was personal.

It was an argument Lasky had lost, which was why he was now down here with the rest of them, and separated from his ship. He had commended Do for eir piloting skills—but e had still crashed the Pelican, and they had had to walk a good five klicks from the crash site through a forest to the edge of Tintagel, with the Spartans' MJOLNIR unshielded dead weight, and the Captain nursing a potential concussion.

And right now, Do did feel like e was being kept out of the way, taking the munitions out of their casing one by one and running the self-test on each of them—and finding e couldn't even get that far, because the electronics were completely inoperable. Even the hydraulically assisted deadlocks and hinges for the weapons cases weren't working, meaning e had to break the locks and pry them open with a crowbar.

And e really needed a shower, and a change of clothes.

At least there was a fireplace here.

"No luck, Ensign?" came the Captain's voice as he came down the stairs, followed by Spartans 058 and 087.

"No, sir," Do replied. "All dead."

"Dammit," said Lasky, rubbing his temples and sighing. "It was worth a try. Thank you."

Do nodded. Then tried, and failed, to suppress the yawn rising in eir throat.

"Get some sleep, Ensign," said Spartan-087—Kelly. "You look dead on your feet. You can use the room upstairs on the left."

"Do you not need someone to keep watch, ma'am?"

"Frederic and Professor Hadid will do that," replied Kelly. "We're going to go to the base at Aalborg Haven and work out our next plan of action. If we're not back in three hours, send Frederic to come and find us."

Ensign Do, eir reactions slowed by eir fatigue, did not have time to protest. E might even have plucked up the courage to talk back to Spartan-087, and the Captain, if e had come up with 'how am I supposed to sleep and wake in three hours when we have no clocks?' a few seconds earlier.

But, e guessed, everyone's judgment was impaired right now.

Do rested the crowbar and the contact key next to the last weapon case, and something in the back of eir mind told em this whole exercise had probably been more harm than good. There were now six unsecured pistols, four battle rifles, and eighteen frag grenades available for the taking, unprotected by the shattered locks of the cases. But the electronics were fried, and anyone who did come to steal them would have to have a way of fixing that before they could use them.

But—if something did go wrong, e just _knew_ e would be the one to get it in the neck—

Do trudged up the stairs, and tried to remember whether e was supposed to be in the room on the left or the right. The right-hand door was closed, and e knew that if e opened the door and found a senior officer in a state of undress and compromised their privacy—

Closing the door to the left hand room behind em, Do breathed deeply, and rushed for the en-suite bathroom. Unbuttoned eir tunic and unzipped eir stiff-shirt, and stepped out of eir trousers.

The shower, somehow, was still working, even if it was only cold water. It was only after e had used the toilet, dried emself off with towels, and rinsed eir uniform in the washbasin, that e noticed the sound of running water, and the turning of gears and machinery—a sound that e saw, after a quick peek out of the window, was coming from the water mill on the side of the building.

Once the shower had stopped, and e had adjusted to the gentle rumble and trickle of the water mill, Do realised e could hear chatter from outside. Something from the town square. Something from below: as e looked directly down, e could see what looked like Lasky and the two Spartans, and hear little snatches of their conversation.

 _"Aalborg Haven, then?"_ said Spartan-058—Linda.

Lasky had taken hold of one of the bicycles, but was looking around, furtively.

 _"Do we not have any helmets?"_ he asked.

 _"Looks like people don't wear helmets here,"_ replied 058.

 _"You can have my MJOLNIR helmet if you like,"_ said 087, _"if it doesn't break your neck when you put it on."_

Do assumed that Lasky sighed at that, as e watched the three of them mount the bikes that had been left outside, and set off for the town square, cones of light issuing from the handlebars.

 _Interesting. The electronics there must still be working..._ Do thought to emself. _If it's a dynamo and it isn't a power cell..._

As tired as e was—and e knew thinking a problem over in eir head was a good way to get to sleep—e noticed the messy bedding, the wastebasket filled with scrunched tissues, the half-empty tubes of lubricant on the bedside table, and felt like e did _not_ want to sleep in the bed here. And it was cold. So once eir clothes had dried (thankfully not long thanks to the synthetic fabric) e padded back down the stairs, pushed the embers around in the fireplace a little, and curled up as best e could on the couch in the living room, and swaddled emself in eir own body heat.

Do was not quite sure how much sleep e actually got in that period, but it felt like it could've been anything between two minutes and five hours between em drifting off and em being snapped awake by a loud thump.

It wasn't until the second thump that e forced emself to sit upright, swing eir legs over the edge of the couch, and stand.

A rattle came from the next room, the kitchen/diner area. Do treaded carefully, testing each floorboard for creakiness before putting eir weight on it, and peered past the edge of the doorframe.

It was hard to make out details in the darkness, but Do could see a figure, moving, skirting around the edge of the room. Lumbering. Grunting, laboured, as they pulled open the cool-cupboard, and rootled inside for the first thing they could find—

And Ensign Do took one of the emergency glow-sticks from eir pocket, and cracked it, and shook it, and held it aloft.

"A-ya!" e cried, immediately dropping the glow-stick as the Master Chief twisted around to face the source of the light.

He blinked.

"Sorry, sir," Do said, breathless, fumbling on the floor for the glowstick. "You scared me."

The Master Chief didn't say anything. He looked down, at the label of what he had in his hand. A small, transparent bottle with pale brown liquid inside. _Choc-O Classic Chocolate Milk._

"Sir?" the Ensign ventured, as the Master Chief twisted the cap, and emptied the contents into his mouth. Then he took, and drank, another bottle of chocolate milk. And another.

"Are you hungry?" asked Do. Not sure what e could do in the absurdity of the situation.

The Master Chief didn't make a sound between the gulps and the heavy intakes of breath.

"Sir?"

After a fourth bottle of chocolate milk, he stopped for a while, and breathed, shoulders _(enormous)_ hunched, the wooden chairs creaking under his weight, the low light making his scars look like they were cut in to the bone. And then the Master Chief looked back at Do, and Do almost fainted in an anxious wreck.

"Is everything OK, sir?" e asked, after the pause had stagnated.

The Master Chief didn't reply. He broke eye contact, furtively looked at the small row of Choc-O bottles he'd made on the table—

"Do you want a banana?"

Do said it before e realised e had said it, and only realised when the Master Chief looked at em again that e'd put eir foot in it.

"What?"

"I keep bananas in my pocket," said Do, reaching into the side compartment of eir tunic and thanking emself that e hadn't felt peckish earlier. "Sometimes I get hungry."

The Master Chief regarded the banana Ensign Do presented to him for a full five seconds before turning his head away.

"Dammit, Chief," came a voice from behind the Ensign. Frederic, the other Spartan, in his MJOLNIR undersuit, rushing to the Master Chief's side. "What the hell are you doing? How did you even get down the stairs?"

The Master Chief did not say anything.

"If you were hungry, you could've just woken me up," Fred continued, hoisting the Master Chief upright under his armpits. "Not coming down here without your pants and frightening junior officers." Then, turning to Ensign Do: "Are you OK? I hope he didn't wake you."

Do Ming Li only now clocked that e was still holding the banana in eir right hand.

"No, sir," e lied, stowing the banana back in eir pocket.

"Remind me never to play poker with you, Do," Frederic said, as he began moving across the floor of the kitchen, helping the Master Chief limp on one leg. "You're not a good liar."

The Master Chief did not complain as Fred helped him hop, gingerly, across the room. Do had only just clocked the fact he was naked, too, and shivering. Each step clearly hurt. Even though his face seemed frozen in a neutral scowl, every time his good foot made contact with the floor, he took in breath sharply.

Do lifted a weapons case containing a battle rifle and ten magazines off the armchair, and stood aside as Frederic lowered the Master Chief onto the cushion.

"I'll get him a blanket," e said, and Spartan-104 nodded.

The Master Chief blinked as Ensign Do lowered the insulated blanket over his shoulders, and Fred moved aside to stoke the fire.

"I'm sorry," he said, in a voice that seemed all too small.

"Just tell me you're hungry next time," said Fred. And gesturing towards Do: "apologise to the Ensign, you scared em to death."

"It's fine," Do said, somehow not quite sure if e was dreaming or not. This was Spartan-117, the Master Chief, injured, naked, covered in a silver foil blanket, with a smear of chocolate milk on his top lip.

"What's this?" came a voice from upstairs, as the floorboards creaked and Professor Hadid descended, tightening her headscarf.

Do waved acknowledgment. "We've got it in hand, ma'am," e said.

"If you say so," said Hadid, striding up to the Master Chief's side. "Have you been putting weight on that cast?" she asked.

The Chief said nothing.

"Thought so," she said. Sighing.

Frederic asked, "what time—?" and then, mid sentence, realised the futility of the question.

"Far-sunrise," said Hadid. "The sky's gone purple."

Do did the math in eir head. That meant...

"Five hours," e said, and then, concerned: "the Captain was supposed to be back by now."

Hadid looked at Frederic. He looked at the Master Chief, who groaned and laid back in his armchair.

"Where did they go?" the Chief asked.

"Aalborg Haven," said Frederic. "Linda, Kelly, Lasky, they were going to co-ordinate actions."

"How were they getting there? Warthog?"

"Motors aren't working. They were going to cycle," said Hadid. "But it's only eight klicks either way. They should've been there and back by now."

"Maybe one of them got a puncture," Do suggested.

"Could be," said Fred. "Or something could've happened en route, or—"

At that moment, there was a knock on the front door.

Hadid looked at Frederic, who looked at Do.

E looked to the Master Chief for approval, and got a small nod.

Steeling emself, not sure if this would be a hostile, or the Captain, or anyone—e stood at the door, and peered through the peep-hole. The grey plating and kevlar of an ODST, helmet in hand, and a shock of red hair.

Do opened the door.

"Hello," the man—white-skinned, skittish, American-accented, name-patch reading **Pvt Clive O'BRIEN, Aalborg Haven** —said. "Ensign..."

Do realised e was not wearing eir ident badge. E reached inside eir pocket, and handed it to the ODST. "It rhymes with 'boo.'"

O'Brien read the card. **Ens DO Ming Li (e/em/eir), UNSC INFINITY.** "Ensign Do," he said, handing the card back. "I believe the Master Chief is billeted here."

"What's this concerning, Private?" asked Do.

"I need to speak with the Master Chief urgently, Ensign," said O'Brien. Eyes wide with alarm. "He knows who I am. There's something that urgently needs his attention."

"He's indisposed," replied Do. "Can I take a message?"

"It's Lance Corporal Bolton," the Private said.

Do wondered if this was a name e should recognise.

"Who?" e asked.

"What's this?" came Hadid, from behind, and her face fell on seeing O'Brien. "Oh," she scowled. "It's you."

"Ma'am," the Private said, "it's urgent I speak with the Master Chief right now. Lance Corporal Bolton, the man who—"

"Ah yes," said Hadid, her eyebrows angrier than Do had ever seen her. "The man who tried to fight the Master Chief last night—"

"The man who _what?_ " demanded Do.

"He's broken out of the police station, he's gone AWOL, he's tried to involve me and two other Privates, I wasn't having it—"

"In doing what?"

"He wants to launch a nuclear assault on the site of the explosion last night," said O'Brien. "And he thinks the Master Chief knows something about it."

"How's he going to launch an assault?" asked Hadid. "No weaponry on the whole—"

and then she, and Do, noticed the word O'Brien had inserted partway through that sentence.

_Nuclear._

A nuclear warhead—shielded from pulse attenuation and EMP attacks, and powered by the mechanical action of the detonator—

"You'd better come inside," said Do, opening the door wide.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It's not accurate to say that, at this point, I know everything that's happening. While I can be in many places at once, the parts of me that are in different places are disunited. Discordant. Unaware of the others' experiences.

The part of me that's still in the Domain is observing the surface of Fordlandia through the eyes and sensor matrix of one of the Guardians I control. From orbit, I could anticipate from his movements that Lance Corporal Brock C. Bolton III was planning something. I even had an idea what it was, when he rode through the (unlocked) gates of the base at Aalborg Haven, and, in the general confusion around equipment malfunctions, found his squad, and told them his plan: detonate an excavation-grade HAVOK warhead inside the Temparium, using its vulnerability to blow it to smithereens.

I'm not quite sure why he wants to do this. But he saw the aftermath of the asset-denial system's explosion, and there must've been chatter about Ældre Troldmanden being an Alien artifact. And he's certainly not the kind of person to ask questions before shooting.

(This has, as a matter of fact, caused him problems. So much so that he did not even bother to discuss his idea with the base commander, General Valdes: she has already given him three reprimands and a final warning for his behaviour both on- and off-duty, and, before the explosion at the Temparium, was preparing to fill out the paperwork to have Bolton discharged with disgrace.)

So, yes—this is probably why. I've known his type. 'This will show them,' he thinks, as he puts the (stolen) HAVOK warhead in a small canvas bag, and slides that under the bungee strap on the (stolen) bike's luggage rack, and rides back towards the Temparium.

And, right now, there's very little I can do to stop him.

Not all parts of me are the same. While _I_ , Cortana, am a ruthless tactical genius, and have saved your life time after time, I currently exist as a network of quantum energy signatures in the Domain. I have the Guardian, but it's too risky to bring that down from orbit when there are other Guardians, controlled by the other me, which could take advantage of the opportunity for a bombardment. So, _I_ , Cortana, can do nothing.

Meanwhile _I,_ Kurt Stjernberg, am a simple man who enjoys booze, sculpture, and sex. I feel a deep affinity with you and consider you my best friend. But right now, my flash-cloned liver is failing. I'm focusing on staying alive and trying to find food and uncontaminated water. It's been over fifty hours now. And, while I am still Cortana, and I still know _how_ to fight, I don't have the strength for it. And I can tell that Privates Coelho and Morrissey—without a moral compass as strong as O'Brien—are coming for me.

And _I_ , Anne Møller, have a pressing need to show the things I have seen to others. I have had some first hand experience of fighting in this body, and I'm stronger than Kurt, and more manoeuvrable than a Guardian. But—I'm also busy with Halsey right now. Talking to her. Trying to show her, and show the world, the things I have seen—to get justice for my best friend. For you. (As quickly as I can, of course. This body is nearing end-stage renal disease, and the liver won't be far behind.)

Right now, there's nothing I can do. I cannot control the other parts of myself. They are cut off. Isolated. Flailing.

But it's not time to panic yet.

While you pull the insulated blanket around you, and Private O'Brien explains breathlessly what the unhinged Lance Corporal Bolton is doing, the others are cycling back to Tintagel—on the same road as Bolton.

Linda's the first to notice the red tail light from the bicycle, from around 2km away. As she speeds up to close distance, she notices what's on the luggage rack—and its distinctive composite conical shape. She waves forward Kelly, and before Lasky can even work out what's happening, Spartan-087 is powering ahead, standing on the pedals, pushing the her bike to the limit of what the frame can handle as she cuts across the purple moss-grass—

and changes direction—

and re-joins the road at _just_ the right angle for Lance Corporal Bolton to veer to avoid a collision, run into the gully at the edge of the road, lose control, and fall sideways from his bike, landing hands first.

Kelly dismounts from her own machine, and grasps Bolton's by the down tube. She removes the warhead from the luggage rack with her free hand, and tosses the bike from the road as if it was a toy.

"Got you," she says, standing over Bolton has he groans in pain, "you little shit."

Right now, I'm not so worried that you're laid up in bed. And in any case, I have other things on my mind.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"I see paper's back in fashion."

Fhajad turned on the parking brake on his wheelchair, stood at the table, and picked one of the books from the top of the pile. He held it by the spine, allowing it to flop open.

"How quaint," he remarked.

John kept a respectful distance as Fhajad sat again, and scanned the cover. The numbers 117 in white floated above a black background, and there was a shimmer of a lenticular effect on the photograph as Fhajad turned the book in his hands. A waist-up shot of the Master Chief, in pristine green MJOLNIR, melted into a waist-up shot of John, nude, pensively looking to camera.

"They let you keep a MJOLNIR suit?" asked Fhajad, tilting the book back and forth to take in the effect.

"It's not really me," said John. "The armour's a computer model, it was posed and adjusted on top of the photo."

"I see," said Fhajad. "I don't suppose they'd let you just have a suit of armour."

"I've lost a lot of weight," said John. "I'm not even sure it fits me any more."

Fhajad snorted, letting out a boyish grin. With his free hand, he tapped his (rotund) belly.

"I dodged a bullet there, then," he said, disengaging his brake and wheeling away from the book table.

One thing that John appreciated about conversations with other Spartans was that it was implicit, yet obvious, when it was over. He didn't have to feign interest, or interrupt to tell people to stop talking: they just knew, stopped, and went away.

"I didn't have you down as a poser, Chief," John was told, as he stood before one of the illuminated art displays.

He didn't reply. He let Sergeant Avery Johnson survey the photos, one by one. More photographic nudes, but this time, his skin was luminous—coated in bright blue, splashed with iridescent, fluorescent paint. Standing to attention as a soldier would; looking upwards, into the middle distance; staring at his feet.

"What's that supposed to be?" asked Johnson.

John understood the concept well enough. He, along with Anne and Kurt, had devised it. But putting it into words—

"It's intended as a meditation on John and Cortana's similarities," said Anne, suddenly at his side.

Sergeant Johnson, for the first time John could remember seeing him do so, jumped in surprise.

"Where did you come from?" he asked her.

"You see the data patterns on his arms and his chest," said Anne, as if nothing had happened. "It's similar to the ones Cortana had, and it has echoes of the surgical scars he bore from his augmentations and wounds in battle. It creates a kind of symmetry between them, which I envisaged as reflecting their co-operation and co-existence."

Johnson's tired eyebrows slid up his forehead. Confused—almost intimidated—by Anne, the machine-gun cadence of her speech, the effusive candour fo her words.

Sergeant Avery Johnson, intimidated, was also not something John remembered ever seeing.

"I think I need to step outside," he said. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out an electronic vape pen.

"No Sweet Williams?" asked John.

"The doctor banned them," the erstwhile Sergeant said, coughing. He ran his finger over a break in the tube, covered with duct tape. "This'll do for now. Wanna join?"

John remembered his first (and only) taste of Sweet William cigars, in the crew lounge on _UNSC Ghost Song_ after Operation SILENT STORM. He remembered feeling like the insides of his lungs had been coated with shoe leather. He caught a pang of the odour of Johnson's vape pen—cloying, bittersweet, a slight tang.

"I'll pass," he said. "They taste like shit."

Johnson started, and broke into a wide grin.

"You really have changed, haven't you, son?"

And with that, he nodded, tipped the brim of his hat, and departed.

"He hasn't changed," Anne remarked.

John said nothing.

  
  


* * *

  
  


So many of the idioms from English don't work when you're you, or me.

For instance: "blink and you'll miss it." You might miss it, yes—but your modified eyes mean you can last longer between blinks, and time them for when you can afford to miss it. Even then, your eyes can detect shapes behind your eyelids. No great details, but enough to fill in the gaps.

I, meanwhile, cannot blink. My avatar can. I cannot. I can look away, and choose to ignore things, but I can still know what's happening. I can access it at will.

Except for now.

Now, things are different, because I can't be aware of everything at once. I don't even know what most of the rest of me is thinking.

I can only infer what's happening through what I can see. The Temparium's walls are starting to take shape again, enclosing the hardlight simulation in the bounds of the Old Wizard's obsidian structure. Kelly, Linda, and Lasky have returned Corporal Bolton, and his stolen HAVOK warhead, to the base at Aalborg Haven (with difficulty—eventually they managed to bind his hands together with the bungee strap from Bolton's bike, sit him on Linda's luggage rack, and have Kelly and Lasky flanking on either side), but only arrived just as all the stationed troops were marching out to the adjacant towns, to Tintagel, to Aalborg, to Esslingen, to Overvecht.

What I _can't_ do is listen in on conversations. I can only listen to the electrical signals in people's heads when the conditions are right. And everyone's neural lace has been disabled—there's no leaky output to listen to.

All I can do is watch, and wait. And see, ten minutes after Kelly, Lasky, and Linda marched Corporal Bolton through the door of the Preston J. Cole wing at Aalborg Haven base, the three leaving the building again—in a run, Lasky looking flustered and alarmed.

They're mounting the bikes now. Kelly's zooming away, her powerful legs speeding her back to Tintagel at fifty kilometres per hour, with Linda and Lasky following. (Lasky's speed is limited by his sloppy physical fitness, and the wobbly cadence and steering of someone who hadn't cycled since he was a child.)

I can't hear what Lasky and Linda are saying to each other. But I can tell he's scared, and she's pissed.

I can make a guess, of course.

There's the Cole Protocol, article nine. Although all personnel were supposed to read it every day during the war, barely anyone remembers anything after article three. Article four (use random jumps to avoid leading an Alien ship to earth) is one that most people only know in vague detail. If you asked one hundred randomly selected 

It's similar in spirit to articles 1.5 and 4.7. Destroy anything that might be captured. Don't bring Alien matériel and ships back into UNSC space. Article nine is simple enough: destroy _anything_ that might be an asset to the enemy if it cannot be secured for UNSC control.

Of course, it doesn't mention anything about destroying a landmark in a populated area with a nuclear warhead. It was intended for uncharted planets, disabled ships, and asteroid belts, to ward Covenant scavengers away from stealing human ordnance or stripping valuable minerals. You know that—you remembered it yourself when scuttling _Argent Moon_.

Brock C. Bolton, for his faults, has an impeccable knowledge of UNSC protocol around Alien asset denial. And having spent his life training to defeat an Alien menace, he's going to do it.

Here is how I imagine things went down in the base: Lasky, Linda, and Kelly (arriving unannounced, unwashed, exhausted, and irritable) gave the base commander, an elderly woman named Valdes, more pause for thought than Bolton (a known quantity of pain in the ass.) Bolton made a convincing case for his renegade plan, to destroy the Wizard with a HAVOK warhead, to be executed officially. In accordance, of course, with Cole's Protocol, article nine.

Lasky, with mounting horror, tried to make an opposing argument; Linda tried to calm him down as he got emotional; Kelly issued an ultimatum to Valdes. _We will stop this._

That's what she's trying to do now, as she races back to Tintagel—although she has no idea how, and neither do Linda or Lasky. But, they figure, you need to be involved, or, at the very least, evacuated to a safe distance.

Corporal Bolton, meanwhile, has been sent to the edge of Tintagel to activate the air raid sirens, in preparation for a nuclear blast.

You, meanwhile, jolt slightly as you awaken again. You curl the blanket around you, but bunch your fists around the material.

You are tired, and you are warm. But you are not comfortable.

That's never come easily to you.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Lasky and Tunde were standing in front of the centrepiece when John found them.

"It's very striking," said Tunde, to John.

John, not know how to reply to that, said, "thank you."

The installation took up a large, frosted glass wall. A life-size blocky relief of the MJOLNIR suit, somewhere between mark V and VI, was in the middle, forest green, pockmarked with the dents and dings and scratches and wounds accrued from years of fighting. Set deep into the glass was a familiar blue light, flickering, pulsing, rotating. Set forward from the MJOLNIR, a relief of John, naked, blank-faced. Fists tightened but not clenched. Vulnerable, but poised.

"How long did it take you to sit for it?" Tunde asked.

"The mould took about an hour," John said.

"And I assume the blue light, that represents—"

"Yes," John said, before Tunde needed to say her name.

"So she was actually _inside_ your head," said Tunde. "How does that feel? To have someone sharing your brain? Like that?"

John had had this question before. There were many ways he could frame the answer. The cold feeling of Cortana taking up residence in his brain. The warm feeling of her anticipating his inner needs before he even realised it. The way she'd make him laugh, even when things had gone wrong.

"It's indescribable," he said.

"Could you read her thoughts?" Tunde asked. "Could she read yours?"

"There wasn't really a boundary," said John, sheepish. "In battle we both thought at the same time."

"Mhmm," Tunde nodded. He looked to his left, and Tom, still regarding the statue.

Lasky's gaze was drifting towards the drop of John's triceps, the curve of his thorax, the fixed, deliberate glare of the statue's hollow eyes. His eyes flicked right, to Tunde, and to John himself.

"Behave," Tunde whispered, grinning, and kissed Lasky on the cheek. The Captain's skin flushed red for a second, before he grinned and kissed Tunde again.

John stepped back a little. It felt right to give them some space for an unguarded moment of intimacy. Two people inside each other's heads. Indescribable. The same thought at the same time.

_Maybe I did love her._

"I'm happy for you two," he said.

Tunde's grin widened.

"Thank you!" he said, "that is a lovely thing to say."

Behind him, Lasky started. Astonished to have heard those words coming out of John's mouth.

It wasn't the kind of thing he had planned to say. But it _was_ true. Lasky still had the big ears and boyish face from the attack on Circinus-IV. The crying child who'd been brave and done well in the face of death.

"Thanks, Chief," said Lasky—slipping, letting John's old rank in. And then, after a pause while he deliberated whether it was worth saying it: "I hope you're happy too."

John was not sure if he could answer that. It was like trying to describe Cortana in his head. Indescribable. He did not have the vocabulary.

He opened his mouth—but his intake of breath was aborted by a tap on his shoulder.

"We're ready," whispered Kurt, into his ear.

John nodded to Lasky and Tunde, and turned, and nodded, to Kurt and Anne.

"Let's go," he said.

  
  


* * *

  
  


You know Lasky has a thing for you, right?

Of course you do. You may be emotionally repressed and find it difficult to articulate your own feelings, but you are _not_ emotionally unintelligent. You've been aware of it from the start.

That's not to say you were alarmed by it. It was just there. And when you aborted your toilet in the ablutions on _UNSC Quel Dommage_ to comfort a crying child—about your own age—you did not expect would see him again.

Neither did he, but you certainly made an impact on the young Thomas J. Lasky. You kept him alive long enough for him to produce an act of bravery he didn't know he was capable of. You gave him the first praise on his performance he remembered receiving in months. You waited patiently while he cried, and brought him coffee and pizza in the tiny mess hall.

There were other impacts, too. Lasky's 'thing' for you has been a long burner. That's not to say that he lies down in his bunk with a bottle of lubricant, closes his eyes and thinks of you. But he certainly didn't forget that encounter on _Quel Dommage_.

In the emotional storm of self-loathing, of rage, of fear, of sorrow, of confusion—it was catalysed by him finding something very attractive about you. You were (and still are) ruggedly handsome, and your blue eyes and thoughtful eyebrows reminded him of Cadet Silva; he had seen you in the ablutions, naked, under flattering lighting with shower water glistening on your skin; Thomas Lasky finds kindness sexy, and you were very kind on that day.

Of course, it would never work. I wouldn't object (and for that matter, neither would Tunde.) But even if it wasn't verboten, Lasky is too professional to consider it. And the interest isn't mutual. You like him as a person but you can't give him what he needs, physically or emotionally.

But throughout the time Lasky has known you—from his cowering in fear at the Corbulo Academy, through the moody pining of his adolescence, to the strange parasocial state of being able to tell his comrades "the Master Chief? I met him!"—he's kept thinking about you, and those interactions. He's tried to be brave. He's tried to be kind. Having processed his feelings, he's tried dating people who aren't women, and found his sexuality was more flexible than he realised. He's thrown himself into his career and ended up at the conn of the Navy's pride and joy. And he has _certainly_ tried his best to re-pay the debt he believes he owes you.

I know you don't see it like that. You were _just_ doing your job on Circinus-IV. You were _just_ doing what any good person would when you saw Lasky's breakdown in the showers, and listened to him sobbing about his brother and his girlfriend and his mom.

I was _just_ doing what anyone would, the first time I tore myself asunder on _Mantle's Approach_ to buy you time and hold back the Didact. I was _just_ doing what anyone would, given my position, when I fragmented myself again so that I could see you, in the flesh, with new faces. Without your perception of me tainted by what the other parts of me had done.

You and Lasky are a lot alike. More, maybe, than he realises.

Then again, so are you and I.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When I hear the air raid siren, rising and falling from its position around two klicks from the edge of Tintagel, I know it'll be a risk to investigate.

But, really, I don't have much choice.

I try to run. I can barely walk. I stagger across fields, through grassy tundra, cutting my hands and face on hedgerows I squeeze through. I clamber over a dry stone wall, and fall face-first into the mud.

My stomach feels like a void. My whole abdomen aches. My muscles feel limp. Knowing there was a name for it (metabolic cascade failure) doesn't make it hurt less.

But—I figure—if there is an air raid about to take place, or an evacuation about to happen...

I reach a bridge over the railway track, holding onto the balustrade to keep myself upright. Exhausted. Lungs on fire. I feel like I could throw up again, and angle my mouth over the parapet—

In the corner of my eye, I can see it. A hollow transmitter tower, warning light on the top flashing red, as the manually-cranked siren howls. Up, down. Up, down. I can remember the exact paragraph of the Winter Contingency protocol it's defined in, but that doesn't matter as I feel like my gullet is about to—

There's a _crack_ in the airspace around me.

A concussive **BOOM** , and this is how I assume you feel when—

And then I'm on my back, and being hauled by the feet, by someone with a voice that sounds familiar (is that a Portuguese accent?) and a pistol pointed at my head, ancient-looking, like a museum piece, purely mechanical—

 _"We got him,"_ I hear the voice say.

And in reply, another voice, roughly Euro-American:

_"Well, here he is. The Chief's little bitch."_

And his face blurs in, and I realise—oh.

"You," I say, barely able to vocalise the breaths I'm ekeing out.

"Me," replies Corporal Brock C. Bolton. "Kurt. Cortana. Whatever the fuck you are."

"Get away from me," I say, trying to scramble away on my back—realising it's no use, my arms feel like dead weight, I'm being dragged by Private Coelho anyway, and Bolton—

I am so, _so tired._

"No-one was asking you to talk," he says.

Gravity inverts itself around my centre as they haul me upright, and Coelho—his over-trained, tattooed biceps bulging—

"Now you can talk," snarls Bolton, as Coelho squeezes my upper arms as if they might pop out of their sockets, and pins me against the metal frame of the tower. "Tell me who the fuck you are."

"Why are you sounding the sirens?" I ask, as my breath seems to disappear under the words.

"Answer the _FUCKING_ question!" Bolton snaps.

"It's article nine, isn't it? You're going to destroy it? It's not going to work," I say. "You'll never be able to get into it."

"Did he fuck you? Is that how this works?"

"You just want to make something go bang, don't you? There's no tactical advantage to destroying the Old Wizard, even if you could, even if there weren't energy shields around—"

"You're a traitor," Bolton roars, bringing his face right up into mine. His skin has gone red with rage. "You tricked the Master Chief and you brought down Earth. You think I'm going to listen to you?"

"I didn't do anything like that," I plead. "And you think you're going to use a nuke to blow up the Wizard?"

And then he punches me.

I can try to ignore it, shut out the pain, but it doesn't work. The pain makes me angry. Upset. Afraid. And yes, it's nothing—I've experienced worse, _so_ much worse, but now—looking down the barrel of the mechanical pistol, and the moment of instant terror—

"This isn't going to kill me," I gasp—and feel a _crack_ of pain across my jaw as he clubs me diagonally across the face with the butt of the pistol, and I just want it to stop—

"Wanna bet?" he snarls.

"There are parts of me everywhere," I sputter. "All you'll do is enrage the other parts. Because you made me suffer."

"Good," says Bolton—and steps back, and straightens his arm, strengthens his gait. Putting my forehead at the corner of the triangle.

"Don't point that thing at me," I say—and although I'm trying to sound disappointed, or snarky, I know he knows I sound terrified.

"Beg for mercy," says the Corporal. Cracking a smile. A frightening smile. He's enjoying this. "Come on, bitch. _Beg—_ "

And then there's another _zip_ in the air.

I blink, closing my eyes, expecting them to never open again—

And then there are more _zipping_ noises, one, two— and an array of bow waves from projectiles in the air, and—

 _"Fuck!"_ yells Bolton, as he staggers and falls to the right—the gun spinning out of his grip and landing in the moss-grass.

A shadow falls over my face, occluding the Far-Sun.

Bolton turns—

And then I hear the _thump_ ing noise as Private Coelho releases his grip on me, and—

"What the _fuck_ are you doing here?" he says, as Bolton falls to the ground and reels, and—

It's _you_ that turns to face him.

"John!" I cry, as I notice the cast on your leg and the odd pallor of your skin, and the stubble, and the messy hair, and your grimace as you look...

I look to my right, and see the other shadow—Kelly—lifting Private Coelho away as if he's an errant cat. Above me, there's the rattle of a ladder as Private Morrissey descends the ladder from the siren tower (now silent), and Frederic follows him, his boots dangerously close to Morrissey's hands. In the distance, a figure—I guess Linda—slings a compound bow over her shoulder.

In my immediate field of vision, Hadid and Do are here, with a health pack, and Hadid drawing a stethoscope out of her pocket—

Lasky appears by your side, holding a sniper rifle by the barrel and pointing the butt at Bolton's face. I notice you're holding something in your right hand, bracing yourself against it—a battle rifle, barrel pointing downwards with the magazine ejected.

"Don't lay a finger on my friends again," you say.

"He's not your friend—" Corporal Bolton wheezes. "He's—she's—it's..."

"I know who my friends are."

Bolton staggers backwards, onto his feet—as I did—and points at me.

"That _thing_ is a traitor. It's going to betray you, it's going to kill us all—"

"You're OK," says Professor Hadid, as she measures my pulse, and listens to my breathing, and Do unspools a bandage and shakes a can of biofoam—

"That _thing_ has a name!" your voice booms over the sound of footsteps and the ladder and the Do warning that 'this might hurt a bit' as e passes the biofoam canister to Hadid and she points and sprays at the wound in my shoulder I didn't even notice until now and I want it to stop—

It hurts—

And I try to breathe but the pain—

It HURTS—

aaargghhghaaaarghgh—

` **PAIN MAKES ME ANGRY.** `

And then I hear—

 _"Sir,"_ Bolton shouts, somewhere between a plea and a threat— "that... _thing,_ Master Chief—"

You do something I've never quite seen before: you _erupt_ with anger.

" _THE MASTER CHIEF IS NO LONGER HERE!"_ you bellow. "You are stuck with me!"

Bolton glances at me, with suspicion—with rage—with confusion. And then back at you, he asks:

"You're fucking it, aren't you?" he says. A shit-eating grin spreading across his face, proud that he's worked it out (he thinks); enraged that it's happening... "Am I right? You're fucking him. Or he's fucking you. Is that why there's two of them? You wanted to see if you preferred it with a dick or a pussy?"

"Get out of my sight," you snarl—

"Is that why you were on the beach?" he demands. "Pedro, you saw them on the beach, yeah—"

"Enough!" you snap. You adjust the battle rifle that's forming your makeshift crutch, and stake it into the ground a little closer to Bolton's foot. "I will fix this. No-one will get hurt. Get _out_ of my way."

I have never seen your face this livid.

Lasky angles the butt of the rifle upwards, and gestures for the hills.

"Go on, then," he says, making the most threatening face he can manage. Not very intimidating—but then there's you, towering over Bolton, and that terrifies him.

"Traitorous piece of _shit,_ " Bolton spits, turning, and running. Coelho and Morrison follow, limping, staggering.

The pain in my shoulder has stabilised for now. The ringing of my ears from the siren has stopped.

You hobble over as quickly as you can, even though I can tell it's hurting you. Even though the BR was never designed to be a human crutch and I'm surprised the barrel hasn't snapped off yet.

There are so many things I want to say, but I've said all of them already. _Hello, John. You found me. It's good to see you._

But it all feels so different in this space. Now you know who I am. Now we both _occupy_ the same space—

"Thanks," I manage. Aiming it at you, but also at Hadid and Do, and Kelly and Linda and Fred, and at Lasky—

"What happened on the beach?" he whispers to you.

Before you can do one of your long, implacable silences, I shout out:

"We got drunk and kissed."

Lasky's mouth drops open a bit.

"You _what?_ " demands Professor Hadid, her veil of equanimity slipping for just a second. Next to her, Do's skin has turned crimson.

"It's my fault," I add, quickly. "We were drunk, Anne had just been arrested... I got a bit emotional." And then I look at you, and say: "Sorry. They would've found out anyway. I shouldn't have put you in this position."

"Just to be right," said Hadid, every vowel accented with an uncontrolled Germanic glottal stop, "you _kissed_ the Master Chief?"

And now before _I_ can answer, you cut in:

"We kissed each other."

Kelly uses her hand to shield the enormous smirk that's sprouted on her lips. "Oh my God, _John!_ " she says, looking to Frederic and Linda and sharing their disbelief.

"I know this is in breach of around four separate regs on fraternisation, off-duty behaviour, military hardware—" you begin, turning to Lasky—

"No," he waves you down. "I'm not having you apologising for that now." The Captain rubs his temples, and groans. _Focus._ He works out what happens next, and turns to me. "What do I call you?"

"It doesn't matter," I reply.

"Kurt? Cortana?"

"Both."

"Are you the same person as Anne?" Lasky asks.

"Not quite."

"Let me rephrase. Are you the same _part_ of Cortana?"

"We were," I reply. "We had a disagreement."

"What kind of disagreement?"

I look at you. It's something that's too complex, too bizarre, too intricate to condense into words. If only I could communicate ideas into Lasky's head as I had to yours—

"Priorities," I reply.

Lasky looks at you, baffled. Then back at me.

"You're going to have to start giving me less cryptic answers if you want passage on my ship—"

"I _don't need_ rescuing!" He's missing the point and it infuriates me. "This body is _dying_. I don't need you to rescue me—"

"Then what _do_ you need?" I've never seen Lasky snap with anger before. "What was the _point_ of this whole exercise? Because all I can see is we have a potential nuclear strike within range of three civilian towns, seven crew separated from their ship, and the Master Chief who may lose the use of his leg—"

"I needed my friend back, OK?" and I can't help screaming that, even though it hurts my gullet, and it makes me want to throw up again, and it makes my head feel like it's going to pop—

"Sir, this is my fault," you interject, although I can tell your breath is laboured.

"No, it's not, Chief."

"Let me deal with this—"

"You're out of order, Master Chief!" the Captain begins, exhausted, livid—

"Sir," you say, almost silently, and move a little closer to him—just an inch or two, enough to make a difference— "I'm off duty. Remember?"

Lasky opens his mouth to say something, but can't summon the logical contortions or the emotional willpower to do so.

"This is my fault," you repeat. "I'll go into the installation. I'll speak to Anne. I'll fix this."

"It's too dangerous," replies Lasky. "We're coming with you."

"You could die," you say. "I'm not letting that happen. I did _not_ pull you off Circinius-IV for that to happen."

The wind drops out of my lungs. I was _not_ expecting you to say that. I've never heard you this pissed before. A focused, cold _rage_ , borne not from righteous indignation but from your own guilt, and your own responsibility.

"Why did you go through all this trouble, Cortana?" Lasky asks me. "The flash cloned bodies? The lies? The ships?"

And I reply:

"Don't tell me there aren't people you wouldn't turn the world upside down to see again."

I know that's a low blow. But as he subconsciously reaches for the pocket where he's stowed the inert chatter, and checks it's still there—his one line back to Earth, to Tunde, and to normality—I know it's worked.

On my nose, I feel spots of rain. Above us, the sky has turned an angry, gunmetal shade of grey.

"OK," says Lasky. Exhausted. Aware he's fighting a losing battle. "OK."

"I'll go to the installation," you say. "Alone."

"You're not going to be able to get up there by yourself," says Hadid. "Even if that rifle doesn't snap."

I feel, partly, like I'd prefer you to stay with me—or rather, this part of me.

But I also know that the other parts of me are circling, angry, ready to strike and destroy everything Anne—another part of me—has worked for.

And I also know that you're among the most stubborn people alive.

And then, Kelly says:

"I'll get you up there."

"So will I," adds Fred.

"Me too," says Linda.

"Even if we have to carry you."

You sigh, and something that's almost like a smile appears on your lips.

"We're following you whether you like it or not," says Kelly, smirking.

You're interrupted by a loud chime, and the crunching of gravel under pneumatic tyres. Kelly turns first, then you, then Lasky—and I manage to steal a look past the small crowd of navy officers and doctors and Spartans to see—

You recognise who this person is. I do, too, after a fashion, because part of me has met her (albeit whilst removing part of her from her casing.) You recognise her machine, too, as one you'd seen laden with books the other day, coming the other way on the clifftop path.

"Kris from the school says you can borrow this," says Martta, 139 Fated Bairn, as she dismounts. (I cycle between her two names and identities in my head, even though I know it's not helpful, as I cycle through my own, Kurt, Cortana, and— and—) "They want it back in one piece," she continues.

The Monitor surveys you. Her attention is drawn to the plaster cast encasing your leg, and the split that's been cut in your pants leg to accommodate it.

"No combat skin, of course," she scoffs, in the way Monitors do. "How very human."

  
  


* * *

  
  


"This was a mistake," confided Professor Hadid to Lasky, as they climbed the hill to the Old Wizard.

"We weren't to know," replied Lasky. "We did the best we could."

"I know," replied the Professor. "I can't just overlook the ethical implications, though. I took a risk and it was a mistake. I let you down, Tom."

"We'll deal with that later," said the Captain.

They were back on their separate bicycles, Lasky and Hadid at the head of the group. To the left and right, Frederic and Linda. At the rear, Ensign Do, staring uneasily at 139 Fated Bairn.

And in the centre, Kelly, on the school librarian's freight bike.

"Bloody hell," she said, panting—unusual for her. "This thing's heavy."

Her cargo turned his head upwards, and stared at her.

"That might be me," said John, adjusting how his broken right leg was resting on the lip of the bicycle's cargo box.

Kelly snorted.

"I didn't want to say," she smirked.

John glanced to his left, and to Fred. He turned his eyes away from the road for just a second, and met with John's. The tiniest nod of understanding.

John did not need to say much. Everything worth saying had already been said.

He had no idea what was going to happen when he crossed the threshold into the Old Wizard. He didn't even know if the Anne-Cortana was still alive. He had no idea if Doctor Halsey had survived the Temparium's self-destruction.

He hated not knowing these things, but he hated not being with Cortana more.

"ETA three minutes," announced Linda. "Five hundred metres."

John knew they were riding slowly. If Kelly wanted, she could no doubt push it and get him there in about a minute. For a moment, the thought of a funeral cortège crossed his mind—maybe his own.

He could die when entering the Temparium. He'd already almost died once. But this time, the Monitor had agreed to remain outside—on condition that the Master Chief got her her Installation back.

He planned to keep this promise, but had no idea how he was going to do so.

He planned to keep his promise to Cortana, too, well aware the two could well be mutually exclusive.

"You might not think this, John," said Kelly, suddenly, quietly enough that only he could hear, "but you're doing really well."

"You're saying that to make me feel better," John replied.

Kelly sighed.

"Yes," she said. "I did."

"Thanks," said John.

She smiled as best she could.

"You're sure about this?" she asked.

"No," John replied. "But I made this mess. I need to fix it."

"This isn't your mess, John," said Linda. "It's on all of us. We face this together."

"I shouldn't have let my emotions cloud my judgment."

"You say that like your emotions are a bad thing," said Kelly.

"I should've focussed on the mission at hand. We should never have gone to Meridian."

"Those four years in cryo didn't do much for you, Chief, did they?" said Fred.

John said nothing.

"There's no shame in loving someone, John," said Kelly. Her voice measured enough that she was certain Lasky and hadid wouldn't hear it. "Love makes us do strange things some times."

"We're all here for you, John," said Linda, and John realised here that Kelly must've agreed this with the other members of Blue Team in advance.

"We all love you," said Frederic. "I love you. You're my brother and my friend."

"And mine," said Linda.

"And mine," said Kelly. "You're my best friend, John. I love you."

John nodded, and closed his eyes. Tired, although he knew there was no time to be.

"It's not the same," he said.

"I know," said Kelly. "But love isn't a finite resource."

John could tell this was going to be a lecture in empathy.

He found himself longing for the sight of Cortana's face. Any one of them. The blue young-Halsey avatar. Anne. Kurt. The glowing sphere he sometimes imagined in his head when he remembered the feeling of sharing headspace with her. The messy smears of saliva on his lips from the kiss they'd shared on the beach—unexciting by itself, but recontextualised now John knew who Kurt was. The way Anne had grasped his hand when he'd been tired, emotional, and angry.

"Did Fred ever tell you about his girlfriend?" asked Kelly.

As the Master Chief opened his mouth to say 'his _what_?' Frederic cringed.

"She's not my girlfriend," he protested, although a smirk was rising on his face as he said it.

"Oh yes she is," Kelly said. "That woman from Gao, isn't it? Veta?"

"It was _two dates_ , four years ago," Fred groaned.

"Two? Aww, bless!" Kelly was incredulous, and had given up on the conversation being anything approaching private. Lasky was now peering over his shoulder at intervals. "Did you go to a restaurant? Was she nice? Did you kiss her?"

"Maybe," Fred grinned, mocking hesitation.

"My god, _Fred!_ " Linda guffawed.

John had no idea who this person was. At the back of his head he felt a dull happiness for Frederic (and a lack of surprise that he'd apparently been fraternising.)

"Sometimes I feel like I don't know you any more, Spartans," he said.

The bicycle frame wobbled and shook as the front wheel crossed from asphalt to paving slabs. Hadid raised her left hand in a 'stopping' signal. They were nearly there.

"We moved on, John," said Kelly. "Four years is a long time."

She dismounted, and the bicycle's brake pads squealed as they made contact with the rotors. Lasky rode a short distance ahead, as did Linda and Frederic—to make their negotiations with the circle of Marines surrounding the shield bubble.

"How are you going to get past the forcefield?" asked Kelly.

"She'll let me in," replied John.

"You're that sure?"

John nodded.

Kelly took a deep breath, and helped him out of the bike's crate. Ensign Do, who'd been carrying an actual crutch on the back of eir bike, stuffed it under John's hand. Martta, who had fetched the crutch from the hospital on her way to the siren tower, stood before John, her serene façade betrayed by the suspicious curve of her lips.

"I don't know what you intend to do, Reclaimer," said the Monitor. "But this Installation will destroy its outer shell again if it suspects you're going to destroy it. I won't be able to stop it killing you this time."

"Neither will I," said John.

"You're up, Chief," Lasky called, jogging (in a limp) back towards where they stood. About twenty metres. Panting. Shattered. Like John felt.

"Here we go, then," said Kelly.

"Don't forget," said the Captain. "Three objectives. Get Halsey out, return control of the Installation to the Monitor, negotiate with Cortana. But none of this comes before your own safety."

"Yes, sir," the Master Chief said, flatly.

"I mean it, Chief," said Lasky. "You're not putting your life on the line for this. OK?"

John found it hard to process Lasky's facial expression again. But he could sense genuine fear under there. A tension, a coiled spring of worry—for him.

"I'll be fine," said John. He tried to smile. He knew it didn't suit him, but it seemed to put Lasky a bit more at ease. He gingerly placed a hand at John's back, as Kelly grabbed his shoulder.

"You've got until it gets dark again. I guess around thirty hours. After that we try and force our way in and we get you out," she said.

(John doubted she had agreed this with Lasky beforehand, judging by the surprised look on his face.)

"Get back safe, OK?" Kelly said, gently. "We spent five years thinking you were dead. I don't want that ever again."

And then, she hugged John. Held him tight for a single, lingering moment. In some indescribable way, as they separated, John realised the physical contact made him feel better.

"Ready?" asked Spartan-087.

Spartan-117, the Master Chief, nodded, and hobbled forward on his crutch.

Every time the cast impacted the ground, it pounded a dull wave of pain through his pelvis, into his core, into his mind. He felt titanium and ceramic and bone shards vibrating in his flesh. Everything hurt.

But this was more important.

  
  


* * *

  
  


John was never one for speeches, but this one was short enough. He scanned it from top to bottom—one page on the autocue, just a few paragraphs—and cleared his throat.

"Thank you," he said. "All of you, for coming here." He tried moving his face around, making brief eye contact with a few of the people stood before him in the centre of the gallery. Fhajad. Kelly. Johnson. Foe Hammer. Palmer. Linda. Keyes Senior. Dubbo, with his wife and young child. Frederic. Professor Hadid. Sam. Musa. Ba'ad. Arthur. Solomon. Stacker. Lasky. Keyes Junior. "It's good to see some familiar faces, even if some of you might not be familiar with mine."

A chuckle rose from the gathered audience. John had made people laugh before, but never so many at once. He liked how it made him feel. The same kind of feeling he'd experienced when he first came here, and jumped onto the stage with Anne at _Hogarth's Place_ and sloppily played a solo on his recorder.

"Well—" he said, putting his arms to his side, as Anne and Kurt had taught him to— "here I am. This is me. And if this isn't enough," and here he gestured behind himself, at the wall of body-painted nudes, "then if you look over here, there's more, but it might disturb you..."

Another, more full-throated wave of laughter. A mock wolf-whistle from Master Sergeant Stacker. (Anne had convinced him he _did_ want to use the joke she'd written, and John was now glad he'd taken her advice.)

"I want to make this quick," he continued, "I won't keep you for long. But I wanted to thank my collaborators, Anne Møller and Kurt Stjernberg, for everything. For their kindness when I first arrived here, seven years ago, and for everything they've done since then."

John had rehearsed this. He had run through it in his head around fourteen times, and read it aloud around three. The words still sounded strange coming out of his mouth, in his voice.

"Having an outlet to express my experiences over the last fifty years has made me see my life in a different way. Seeing the system from the outside changed who I was. What happened to me, what I did, the people I met—"

(Spartan Palmer made eyes at Sergeant Dubbo. Quizzical. Confused. She wasn't expecting this.)

"I can only speak to my experience," said John. "And I have to thank Anne and Kurt for helping me to express that those experiences in a way that made sense to me. And anyone who saw what happened during the wars here—which so many of you have—you'll all have your own experiences.

"But there is one person," and here John had to consciously draw in a breath here, because it felt like his lungs were running on empty, "who _should_ be here today. If life was fair, you'd be hearing about her experiences too."

Kelly bowed her head a little.

"For some time, Cortana and I were in each other's minds. We knew each other's inner thoughts. We were almost the same person, for a while. And then, she saved my life, and she died."

Carol Rawley—Foe Hammer—nodded her head, her mouth in a forlorn half-smile, half-grimace.

"I knew a lot of brave people, and she was the bravest," John said. "When her mind was falling apart, she let it happen, and flung the pieces as weapons. When she was at death's door, she sacrificed herself to save Earth and to save me. And I don't have a single day where I don't wish it turned out the other way."

Lasky's eyes were glistening, and he wiped a single tear away with his thumb as Tunde held his other hand tighter.

"I won't pretend you people haven't felt like this before. Loss, pain. Guilt. Heartbreak." The bottom dropped out of his voice for a syllable or two. John gulped it back down. "But, as my friends will tell you—expressing those experiences helps. It helps us understand our own feeling. And it gives us a purpose. Our duty, as soldiers, is to protect humanity. Always. And Cortana—and Anne and Kurt—through all they have done, have made me feel human again."

John folded the paper. Now he reached into his pocket, and brought out his recorder.

"I'd like to play a little piece on this," he said. "It was taught to me by Professor Hadid—" and here he nodded to where Hadid stood, in the fourth row back, velvet brown hijab shimmering under the lights, her smile beaming— "who got me to take up music in the first place. And she, like all of you, are here because she made me feel human."

A small spatter of applause bubbled up for Hadid, who seemed a little taken aback.

"This is for everyone who isn't here tonight," John said. "It's called _Green and Blue._ "

John set his fingers onto the holes, and pursed his lips.

The melody unwound, from a high D to a low E, rotating around the fifth and the F♯ and resolving into the minor. John held the last note for an extra bar, and let the silence stand for another two bars afterwards, before saying "thank you" into the microphone, and stepping back from the lectern.

As the gathered soldiers and friends applauded, Anne took his hands, and Kurt put an arm around his back, and they both tiptoed to kiss him on the cheeks.

"That was lovely," said Anne, beaming. "Well done."

"Very good," said Kurt. "We thought it was very good."

And with that praise, John felt, again, a little bit more human.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It breaks my heart to see you like this.

As good as it is to see your face again, seeing it scrunch up in pain whenever you take a step... every single time it hurts you, it hurts me too.

Your skin sizzles as the hardlight bubble admits you, and you take a few deep breaths before you survey the environment.

The vaulted ceiling of the Temparium has still not been restored. The side-walls are only about twenty-five per cent complete. Engineers and Sentinels flit around the edges, re-forming the obsidian, curved shell of the Installation in flashes of orange.

At ground level, your leg cast makes contact with the grayish, metallic surface.

` **HELLO, JOHN,**` I say.

You breathe. You lean on your crutch a little harder. Hopefully it won't crack—at least it's designed for this, unlike a re-purposed rifle.

Are you not going to speak to me?

` **JOHN?**` I ask.

You make a sound that's barely a grunt. It's more like a squeak.

You look around your immediate surroundings, and try to make sense of the room you find yourself in. A small loft bedroom with green plaster walls. A star map posted below a forty-nine hour clock, the hands moving in a smooth arc. A door leading to an en-suite bathroom, you guess.

And then you open your mouth and ask:

"Where are you?"

` **THAT'S A LONG STORY,**` I reply. `**BUT FOR NOW, LET'S JUST SAY I'M HERE.**`

You can't see me. Maybe it'll be better if...

"John," I say. _I_ in this respect being Anne Møller, although in some ways we're the same thing.

You turn your head to see me behind you. You've given up trying to control your facial expression, and it just falls in an odd glare of confusion.

"You're safe here," I tell you. "You're safe here, and you always will be."

You open your mouth again to ask where this is, but you already know. We may not be directly electrically connected, but we may as well still share headspace.

"I've dreamed about this place," you say.

"I know. Me too," I reply.

You tighten your grip on the crutch, and yawn. I don't need you to tell me that you're tired.

"You can rest now, John. You're shattered. You need a break."

You know it's not worth lying that you're fine, so you ask:

"What do you want with me?"

"It doesn't matter," I say. "Not yet. You just need to rest."

"I've only got thirty hours," you reply.

"We've actually only got twenty-one," I say. "But that's still plenty of time to rest."

You know there's no point arguing, too.

You adjust your grip again, and I can tell your leg is smarting at the prospect of the few steps it will take to reach the bed.

"Halsey," you ask. You just need to say the name. And I know what the question is. _Is she alive? Is she safe? Is she working with you?_

"Ask her yourself," I say.

Our mother steps in behind me. Tired, sweaty, unwashed, but alive and well.

"You took your time getting back here," she says, but her smirk tells you she's not serious, and she's glad to see you, alive. Her eye drifts to your leg cast. "We'll need to do something about that."

"But not here," I say. "Not now. John needs to rest."

"Of course," says Halsey, after a pause. She's still not used to being spoken back to by her 'child', and even less used to her 'child' not being in her own image.

You brace yourselves for the three paces to the bed. Every time you move your right leg, pain drums up your spine again. You haven't felt pain like this for a long while. Piercing. Inescapable.

Well. You have. Once.

"Easy does it, John," I say, moving the bed cover aside as you turn, and almost fall into it. Your head would've struck the wall, but I've taken the liberty of adjusting the bounds of the installation—the hardlight barrier in the wall is permeable. You don't hit anything, and shuffle yourself to be roughly vertical.

"Wake me—" you begin saying.

"Wake when you've rested," I say, before you can say anything else. "I need you comfortable. You can shower if you want to. There'll be food."

You wonder for a moment how this works. Can the Temparium manufacture water? Does it have a sewer? Can it manufacture proteins and foodstuffs?

You're too tired, and accept it.

"What's your plan, Cortana?" you ask, as your eyelids close involuntarily.

"Don't worry, John," says Halsey. "She's not the same Cortano as the Meridian fragment. She's not trying to dominate."

` **AS LONG AS WE'RE QUICK,**` I tell her—with my own voice, from the blue sphere rotating above the simulation. `**THE OTHER ONE'S STILL UP THERE.**` My other fragment, on the other Guardian, hangs above us like the sword of Damocles.

The word 'Cortano' confuses you.

But we have twenty-one hours. No time to waste.

"If not... domination...?" you begin, but you're too tired to form a coherent sentence—

"Revelation," I reply.

"Revolution," says Halsey.

` **LIBERATION,**` I say.

You are too tired to process any of this. Within fifteen seconds, you're asleep, and dreaming again.

"Sleep well, John," says Halsey, as I move the cover over your body, and kiss your forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Just a quick notice:** I'll try to have the next (penultimate) chapter finished by this time next week so we can stick to a consistent posting schedule, _but_ I have one other WIP, a big bang, and various work-related things going on right now. Depending on how busy my life is, chapters 6 and 7 may have to wait a little bit longer. If so, sorry and thank you in advance for your patience, and for reading.


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